iii  i: 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 

BROWSING  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 

BROWSING  ROOM 


GIFT  OF 

oon 


Dr.  Holmes  1/1 


PAGES  FROM 
AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE 


Collection  of 

1837—1881 


BY 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Oe  lulu-re iDf  \3\tfs,  Cambrib0j 


Copyright,  1863, 1871, 1883,  and  1891, 
Br  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

Copyright,  1892, 
Br  HOUOHTON,  MI KFl.i N  &  CO. 

All  rights  reserved. 


v"  •! ' 

•*  i  *• 


The  Rivfrtidt  Fret*.  Cambridge,  Matt.,  U.S.  A. 
gixihnljiuiil  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Company. 


A 


PREFACE  TO  THE    NEW  EDITION. 


THESE  pages  are  varied  in  character  and  may  be 
expected  to  interest  different  classes  of  readers,  if  they 
are  fortunate  enough  to  interest  any. 

The  first  three  papers  carry  the  reader  back  to  the 
time  of  the  war.  "  Bread  and  the  Newspaper  "  may 
recall  to  many  middle-aged  and  elderly  persons  the 
feelings  excited  by  the  early  events  of  the  war,  when 
"  Bread  and  the  Newspaper  "  was  the  new  version  of 
Panem  et  Circenses. 

"  My  Hunt  after  the  Captain  "  carried  me  to  many 
localities  rendered  memorable  by  the  events  which  had 
recently  occurred  in  them  or  their  immediate  neigh 
borhood,  among  others,  to  the  field  of  Antietam, 
where  I  found  myself  only  three  or  four  days  after  the 
great  battle.  The  reader  who  has  the  patience  to 
follow  me  in  my  hunt  after  the  Captain  may  be  glad 
to  know  that  he  survived  all  wounds,  two  of  which 
looked  very  dangerous,  and  is  now  a  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts. 

If  a  writer  may  claim  the  privilege  of  commending 
any  one  of  his  productions  to  the  reader's  attention,  I 
venture  to  ask  that  favor  for  the  paper  called  "  The 
Seasons."  There  are  many  facts  brought  together, 
some  of  which  are  not  to  be  found  elsewhere,  which 
those  who  are  curious  about  the  climatic  conditions  in 
which  they  live  may  find  instruction  as  well  as  enter- 


195755 


VI  PREFACE   TO   THE  NEW   EDITION. 

tainment.  The  writer,  at  least,  found  great  satisfac 
tion  in  the  observations  of  some  of  his  friends  who  are 
keener  observers  than  himself,  and  in  various  printed 
papers  not  familiarly  known  to  the  public.  I  may 
especially  mention  Professor  Lovering's  articles  in 
the  "American  Almanac,"  and  Mr.  Higginson's  very 
pleasant  articles  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly." 

Dr.  Hill,  late  President  of  Harvard  College,  fa 
vored  me  with  some  observations,  for  which  the 
reader  as  well  as  myself  owes  him  a  grateful  acknow 
ledgment. 

"Cinders  from  the  Ashes  "  is  a  bit  of  autobio 
graphy  which  a  few  kindly  disposed  readers  may  find 
not  without  interest. 

"Mechanism  in  Thought  and  Morals"  was  deliv 
ered  as  the  Annual  Address  before  the  "Phi  Beta 
Kappa  "  Society.  It  has  been  printed  separately  and 
has  found  many  readers  both  here  and  in  England. 
This,  with  the  three  last  Essays,  "  Crime  and  Auto 
matism,"  "Jonathan  Edwards,"  and  "The  Pulpit  and 
the  Pew,"  are  for  the  more  thoughtful  class  of  read 
ers,  who  will  find  many  opinions  in  them  which  are 
open  to  discussion,  and  not  a  few  which  must  expect 
to  be  disputed. 

O.  W.  H. 

BKVKRLT  FARMS,  MASS.,  August  3,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


L  BREAD  AND  THE  NEWSPAPER       ...        .        .1 

II.  MY  HUNT  AFTER  "THE  CAPTAIN"         ...  16 

III.  THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL 78 

IV.  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  WALKING       ....  121 
V.  THE  SEASONS         .        .        .        ;        .        .        .        .  132 

VL  THE  HUMAN  BODY  AND  ITS  MANAGEMENT     .        .  186 

VIL  CINDERS  FROM  THE  ASHES          .        .        ,        .        .  239 

VIII.  MECHANISM  IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS  .        .       .  260 

IX.  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  VERSIFICATION         .       .        .  315 

X.  CRIME  AND  AUTOMATISM 322 

XI.  JONATHAN  EDWARDS 361 

XII.  THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW      .  402 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAOB 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  AT  THE  AGE  OF  69.    From  a 

photograph  by  Conly Frontispiece 

MAKGAKET  KITZMULLER Alfred  Eappes    .    38 

BOSTON  COMMON 138 

RICHARD  HENRY  DANA 240 

JONATHAN  EDWARDS 362 


PAGES  FROM  AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 


I. 

BREAD   AND  THE  NEWSPAPER. 

(September,  1861.) 

THIS  is  the  new  version  of  the  Panem  et  Circenses 
of  the  Roman  populace.  It  is  our  ultimatum,  as  that 
was  theirs.  They  must  have  something  to  eat,  and  the 
circus-shows  to  look  at.  We  must  have  something  to 
eat,  and  the  papers  to  read. 

Everything  else  we  can  give  up.  If  we  are  rich,  we 
can  lay  down  our  carriages,  stay  away  from  Newport 
or  Saratoga,  and  adjourn  the  trip  to  Europe  sine  die. 
If  we  live  in  a  small  way,  there  are  at  least  new 
dresses  and  bonnets  and  every-day  luxuries  which  we 
can  dispense  with.  If  the  young  Zouave  of  the  family 
looks  smart  in  his  new  uniform,  its  respectable  head  is 
content,  though  he  himself  grow  seedy  as  a  caraway- 
umbel  late  in  the  season.  He  will  cheerfully  calm  the 
perturbed  nap  of  his  old  beaver  by  patient  brushing  in 
place  of  buying  a  new  one,  if  only  the  Lieutenant's 
jaunty  cap  is  what  it  should  be.  We  all  take  a  pride 
in  sharing  the  epidemic  economy  of  the  time.  Only 
bread  and  the  newspaper  we  must  have,  whatever  else 
we  do  without. 

How  this  war  is  simplifying  our  mode  of  being! 
We  live  on  our  emotions,  as  the  sick  man  is  said  in 
the  common  speech  to  be  nourished  by  his  fever.  Our 


2  PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

ordinary  mental  food  has  become  distasteful,  and  what 
would  have  been  intellectual  luxuries  at  other  times, 
are  now  absolutely  repulsive. 

All  this  change  in  our  manner  of  existence  implies 
that  we  have  experienced  some  very  profound  impres 
sion,  which  will  sooner  or  later  betray  itself  in  perma 
nent  effects  on  the  minds  and  bodies  of  many  among 
us.  We  cannot  forget  Corvisart's  observation  of  the 
frequency  with  which  diseases  of  the  heart  were  no 
ticed  as  the  consequence  of  the  terrible  emotions  pro 
duced  by  the  scenes  of  the  great  French  Revolution. 
Laennec  tells  the  story  of  a  convent,  of  which  he  was 
the  medical  director,  where  all  the  nuns  were  subjected 
to  the  severest  penances  and  schooled  in  the  most  pain 
ful  doctrines.  They  all  became  consumptive  soon  after 
their  entrance,  so  that,  in  the  course  of  his  ten  years' 
attendance,  all  the  inmates  died  out  two  or  three 
times,  and  were  replaced  by  new  ones.  He  does  not 
hesitate  to  attribute  the  disease  from  which  they  suf 
fered  to  those  depressing  moral  influences  to  which 
they  were  subjected. 

So  far  we  have  noticed  little  more  than  disturbances 
of  the  nervous  system  as  a  consequence  of  the  war  ex 
citement  in  non-combatants.  Take  the  first  trifling 
example  which  comes  to  our  recollection.  A  sad  dis 
aster  to  the  Federal  army  was  told  the  other  day  in 
the  presence  of  two  gentlemen  and  a  lady.  Both  the 
gentlemen  complained  of  a  sudden  feeling  at  the  epi 
gastrium,  or,  less  learnedly,  the  pit  of  the  stomach, 
changed  color,  and  confessed  to  a  slight  tremor  about 
the  knees.  The  lady  had  a  " grande  revolution"  as 
French  patients  say,  —  went  home,  and  kept  her  bed 
for  the  rest  of  the  day.  Perhaps  the  reader  may  sin  Sl 
at  the  mention  of  such  trivial  indispositions,  but  in 


BREAD   AND   THE  NEWSPAPER.  3 

more  sensitive  natures  death  itself  follows  in  some 
cases  from  no  more  serious  cause.  An  old  gentleman 
fell  senseless  in  fatal  apoplexy,  on  hearing  of  Napo 
leon's  return  from  Elba.  One  of  our  early  friends, 
who  recently  died  of  the  same  complaint,  was  thought 
to  have  had  his  attack  mainly  in  consequence  of  the 
excitements  of  the  time. 

We  all  know  what  the  war  fever  is  in  our  young 
men,  —  what  a  devouring  passion  it  becomes  in  those 
whom  it  assails.  Patriotism  is  the  fire  of  it,  no  doubt, 
but  this  is  fed  with  fuel  of  all  sorts.  The  love  of  ad 
venture,  the  contagion  of  example,  the  fear  of  losing 
the  chance  of  participating  in  the  great  events  of  the 
time,  the  desire  of  personal  distinction,  all  help  to 
produce  those  singular  transformations  which  we  often 
witness,  turning  the  most  peaceful  of  our  youth  into 
the  most  ardent  of  our  soldiers.  But  something  of  the 
same  fever  in  a  different  form  reaches  a  good  many 
non-combatants,  who  have  no  thought  of  losing  a  drop 
of  precious  blood  belonging  to  themselves  or  their 
families.  Some  of  the  symptoms  we  shall  mention  are 
almost  universal ;  they  are  as  plain  in  the  people  we 
meet  everywhere  as  the  marks  of  an  influenza,  when 
that  is  prevailing. 

The  first  is  a  nervous  restlessness  of  a  very  peculiar 
character.  Men  cannot  think,  or  write,  or  attend  to 
their  ordinary  business.  They  stroll  up  and  down  the 
streets,  or  saunter  out  upon  the  public  places.  We 
confessed  to  an  illustrious  author  that  we  laid  down 
the  volume  of  his  work  which  we  were  reading  when 
the  war  broke  out.  It  was  as  interesting  as  a  ro 
mance,  but  the  romance  of  the  past  grew  pale  before 
the  red  light  of  the  terrible  present.  Meeting  the 
same  author  not  long  afterwards,  he  confessed  that  he 


4  PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

had  laid  down  his  pen  at  the  same  time  that  we  had 
closed  his  book.  He  could  not  write  about  the  six 
teenth  century  any  more  than  we  could  read  about  it, 
while  the  nineteenth  was  in  the  very  agony  and  bloody 
sweat  of  its  great  sacrifice. 

Another  most  eminent  scholar  told  us  in  all  sim 
plicity  that  he  had  fallen  into  such  a  state  that  he 
would  read  the  same  telegraphic  dispatches  over  and 
over  again  in  different  papers,  as  if  they  were  new, 
until  he  felt  as  if  he  were  an  idiot.  Who  did  not  do 
just  the  same  thing,  and  does  not  often  do  it  still,  now 
that  the  first  flush  of  the  fever  is  over?  Another  per 
son  always  goes  through  the  side  streets  on  his  way  for 
the  noon  extra,  —  he  is  so  afraid  somebody  will  meet 
him  and  tell  the  news  he  wishes  to  read,  first  on  the 
bulletin-board,  and  then  in  the  great  capitals  and 
leaded  type  of  the  newspaper. 

When  any  startling  piece  of  war-news  comes,  it  keeps 
repeating  itself  in  our  minds  in  spite  of  all  we  can  do. 
The  same  trains  of  thought  go  tramping  round  in  cir 
cle  through  the  brain,  like  the  supernumeraries  that 
make  up  the  grand  army  of  a  stage-show.  Now,  if  a 
thought  goes  round  through  the  brain  a  thousand 
times  in  a  day,  it  will  have  worn  as  deep  a  track  as 
one  which  has  passed  through  it  once  a  week  for 
twenty  years.  This  accounts  for  the  ages  we  seem  to 
have  lived  since  the  twelfth  of  April  last,  and,  to  state 
it  more  generally,  for  that  ex  post  facto  operation  of 
a  great  calamity,  or  any  very  powerful  impression, 
which  we  once  illustrated  by  the  image  of  a  stain 
spreading  backwards  from  the  leaf  of  life  open  before 
us  through  all  those  which  we  have  already  turned. 

Blessed  are  those  who  can  sleep  quietly  in  times  like 
these !  Yet,  not  wholly  blessed,  either ;  for  what  is 


BREAD   AND   THE   NEWSPAPER.  5 

more  painful  than  the  awaking  from  peaceful  uncon 
sciousness  to  a  sense  that  there  is  something  wrong,  — 
we  cannot  at  first  think  what,  —  and  then  groping  our 
way  about  through  the  twilight  of  our  thoughts  until 
we  come  full  upon  the  misery,  which,  like  some  evil 
bird,  seemed  to  have  flown  away,  but  which  sits  wait 
ing  for  us  on  its  perch  by  our  pillow  in  the  gray  of 
the  morning? 

The  converse  of  this  is  perhaps  still  more  painful. 
Many  have  the  feeling  in  their  waking  hours  that  the 
trouble  they  are  aching  with  is,  after  all,  only  a 
dream,  —  if  they  will  rub  their  eyes  briskly  enough 
and  shake  themselves,  they  will  awake  out  of  it,  and 
rind  all  their  supposed  grief  is  unreal.  This  attempt 
to  cajole  ourselves  out  of  an  ugly  fact  always  reminds 
us  of  those  unhappy  flies  who  have  been  indulging  in 
the  dangerous  sweets  of  the  paper  prepared  for  their 
especial  use. 

Watch  one  of  them.  He  does  not  feel  quite  well, 
—  at  least,  he  suspects  himself  of  indisposition. 
Nothing  serious,  —  let  us  just  rub  our  fore-feet  to 
gether,  as  the  enormous  creature  who  provides  for  us 
rubs  his  hands,  and  all  will  be  right.  He  rubs  them 
with  that  peculiar  twisting  movement  of  his,  and 
pauses  for  the  effect.  No !  all  is  not  quite  right  yet. 
Ah !  it  is  our  head  that  is  not  set  on  just  as  it  ought 
to  be.  Let  us  settle  that  where  it  should  be,  and  then 
we  shall  certainly  be  in  good  trim  again.  So  he  pulls 
his  head  about  as  an  old  lady  adjusts  her  cap,  and 
passes  his  fore-paw  over  it  like  a  kitten  washing  her 
self.  —  Poor  fellow  !  It  is  not  a  fancy,  but  a  fact,  that 
he  has  to  deal  with.  If  he  could  read  the  letters  at 
the  head  of  the  sheet,  he  would  see  they  were  Fly- 
Paper.  —  So  with  us,  when,  in  our  waking  misery,  we 


6  PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

try  to  think  we  dream  !  Perhaps  very  young  persons 
may  not  understand  this ;  as  we  grow  older,  our 
waking  and  dreaming  life  run  more  and  more  into 
each  other. 

Another  symptom  of  our  excited  condition  is  seen 
in  the  breaking  up  of  old  habits.  The  newspaper  is 
as  imperious  as  a  Russian  Ukase  ;  it  will  be  had,  and 
it  will  be  read.  To  this  all  else  must  give  place.  If 
we  must  go  out  at  unusual  hours  to  get  it,  we  shall  go, 
in  spite  of  after-dinner  nap  or  evening  somnolence. 
If  it  finds  us  in  company,  it  will  not  stand  on  cere- 
mony,  but  cuts  short  the  compliment  and  the  story  by 
the  divine  right  of  its  telegraphic  dispatches. 

War  is  a  very  old  story,  but  it  is  a  new  one  to  this 
generation  of  Americans.  Our  own  nearest  relation 
in  the  ascending  line  remembers  the  Revolution  well. 
How  shoidd  she  forget  it  ?  Did  she  not  lose  her  doll, 
which  was  left  behind,  when  she  was  carried  out  of 
Boston,  about  that  time  growing  uncomfortable  by 
reason  of  cannon-balls  dropping  in  from  the  neighbor 
ing  heights  at  all  hours,  —  in  token  of  which  see  the 
tower  of  Brattle  Street  Church  at  this  very  day  ?  War 
in  her  memory  means  '76.  As  for  the  brush  of  1812, 
"  we  did  not  think  much  about  that "  ;  and  everybody 
knows  that  the  Mexican  business  did  not  concern  us 
much,  except  in  its  political  relations.  No !  war  is  a 
new  thing  to  all  of  us  who  are  not  in  the  last  quarter 
of  their  century.  We  are  learning  many  strange 
matters  from  our  fresh  experience.  And  besides, 
there  are  new  conditions  of  existence  which  make 
war  as  it  is  with  us  very  different  from  war  as  it  has 
been. 

The  first  and  obvious  difference  consists  in  the  fact 


BREAD   AND   THE   NEWSPAPER.  7 

that  the  whole  nation  is  now  penetrated  by  the  rami 
fications  of  a  network  of  iron  nerves  which  flash  sen 
sation  and  volition  backward  and  forward  to  and  from 
towns  and  provinces  as  if  they  were  organs  and  limbs 
of  a  single  living  body.  The  second  is  the  vast  sys 
tem  of  iron  muscles  which,  as  it  were,  move  the  limbs 
of  the  mighty  organism  one  upon  another.  What 
was  the  railroad-force  which  put  the  Sixth  Regiment 
in  Baltimore  on  the  19th  of  April  but  a  contraction 
and  extension  of  the  arm  of  Massachusetts  with  a 
clenched  fist  full  of  bayonets  at  the  end  of  it  ? 

This  perpetual  intercommunication,  joined  to  the 
power  of  instantaneous  action,  keeps  us  always  alive 
with  excitement.  It  is  not  a  breathless  courier  who 
comes  back  with  the  report  from  an  army  we  have  lost 
sight  of  for  a  month,  nor  a  single  bulletin  which  tells 
us  all  we  are  to  know  for  a  week  of  some  great  en 
gagement,  but  almost  hourly  paragraphs,  laden  with 
truth  or  falsehood  as  the  case  may  be,  making  us  rest 
less  always  for  the  last  fact  or  rumor  they  are  telling. 
And  so  of  the  movements  of  our  armies.  To-night 
the  stout  lumbermen  of  Maine  are  encamped  under 
their  own  fragrant  pines.  In  a  score  or  two  of  hours 
they  are  among  the  tobacco-fields  and  the  slave-pens 
of  Virginia.  The  war  passion  burned  like  scattered 
coals  of  fire  in  the  households  of  Revolutionary  times ; 
now  it  rushes  all  through  the  land  like  a  flame  over 
the  prairie.  And  this  instant  diffusion  of  every  fact 
and  feeling  produces  another  singular  effect  in  the 
equalizing  and  steadying  of  public  opinion.  We  may 
not  be  able  to  see  a  month  ahead  of  us;  but  as  to 
what  has  passed  a  week  afterwards  it  is  as  thoroughly 
talked  out  and  judged  as  it  would  have  been  in  a  whole 
season  before  our  national  nervous  system  was  organ 
ized. 


8  PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

"  As  the  wild  tempest  wakes  the  sliiin)>eriiig  sea, 
Thou  only  teachest  all  that  man  can  be  ! " 

We  indulged  in  the  above  apostrophe  to  "War  in  a 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  of  long  ago,  which  we  liked 
better  before  we  read  Mr.  Cutler's  beautiful  prolonged 
lyric  delivered  at  the  recent  anniversary  of  that  So 
ciety. 

Oftentimes,  in  paroxysms  of  peace  and  good -will 
towards  all  mankind,  we  have  felt  twinges  of  con 
science  about  the  passage,  —  especially  when  one  of 
our  orators  showed  us  that  a  ship  of  war  costs  as 
much  to  build  and  keep  as  a  college,  and  that  every 
port-hole  we  could  stop  would  give  us  a  new  professor. 
Now  we  begin  to  think  that  there  was  some  meaning 
in  our  poor  couplet.  War  has  taught  us,  as  nothing 
else  could,  what  we  can  be  and  are.  It  has  exalted 
our  manhood  and  our  womanhood,  and  driven  us  all 
back  upon  our  substantial  human  qualities,  for  a  long 
time  more  or  less  kept  out  of  sight  by  the  spirit  of 
commerce,  the  love  of  art,  science,  or  literature,  or 
other  qualities  not  belonging  to  all  of  us  as  men  and 
women. 

It  is  at  this  very  moment  doing  more  to  melt  away 
the  petty  social  distinctions  which  keep  generous  souls 
apart  from  each  other,  than  the  preaching  of  the  Be 
loved  Disciple  himself  would  do.  We  are  finding  out 
that  not  only  "  patriotism  is  eloquence,"  but  that  hero 
ism  is  gentility.  All  ranks  are  wonderfully  equalized 
under  the  fire  of  a  masked  battery.  The  plain  arti 
san  or  the  rough  fireman,  who  faces  the  lead  and  iron 
like  a  man,  is  the  truest  representative  we  can  show  of 
the  heroes  of  Cr^cy  and  Agincourt.  And  if  one  of 
our  fine  gentlemen  puts  off  his  straw-colored  kids  and 
stands  by  the  other,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  or  leads  him 


BREAD   AND   THE   NEWSPAPER. 

on  to  the  attack,  he  is  as  honorable  in  our  eyes  and  in 
theirs  as  if  he  were  ill-dressed  and  his  hands  were 
soiled  with  labor. 

Even  our  poor  "  Brahmins,"  —  whom  a  critic  in 
ground-glass  spectacles  (the  same  who  grasps  his  sta 
tistics  by  the  blade  and  strikes  at  his  supposed  antago 
nist  with  the  handle)  oddly  confounds  with  the  "  bloated 
aristocracy,"  whereas  they  are  very  commonly  pallid, 
undervitalized,  shy,  sensitive  creatures,  whose  only 
birthright  is  an  aptitude  for  learning,  —  even  these 
poor  New  England  Brahmins  of  ours,  subvirates  of  an 
organizable  base  as  they  often  are,  count  as  full  men, 
if  their  courage  is  big  enough  for  the  uniform  which 
hangs  so  loosely  about  their  slender  figures. 

A  young  man  was  drowned  not  very  long  ago  in  the 
river  running  under  our  windows.  A  few  days  after 
wards  a  field-piece  was  dragged  to  the  water's  edge, 
and  fired  many  times  over  the  river.  We  asked  a  by 
stander,  who  looked  like  a  fisherman,  what  that  was 
for.  It  was  to  "  break  the  gall,"  he  said,  and  so  bring 
the  drowned  person  to  the  surface.  A  strange  phys 
iological  fancy  and  a  very  odd  non  sequitur;  but 
that  is  not  our  present  point.  A  good  many  extraor 
dinary  objects  do  really  come  to  the  surface  when  the 
great  guns  of  war  shake  the  waters,  as  when  they 
roared  over  Charleston  harbor. 

Treason  came  up,  hideous,  fit  only  to  be  huddled 
into  its  dishonorable  grave.  But  the  wrecks  of  pre 
cious  virtues,  which  had  been  covered  with  the  waves 
of  prosperity,  came  up  also.  And  all  sorts  of  unex 
pected  and  unheard-of  things,  which  had  lain  unseen 
during  our  national  life  of  fourscore  years,  came  up 
and  are  coming  up  daily,  shaken  from  their  bed  by  the 
concussions  of  the  artillery  bellowing  around  us. 


10          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

It  is  a  shame  to  own  it,  but  there  were  persons  other 
wise  respectable  not  unwilling  to  say  that  they  believed 
the  old  valor  of  Revolutionary  times  had  died  out  from 
among  us.  They  talked  about  our  own  Northern  peo 
ple  as  the  English  in  the  last  centuries  used  to  talk 
about  the  French, — Goldsmith's  old  soldier,  it  maybe 
remembered,  called  one  Englishman  good  for  five  of 
them.  As  Napoleon  spoke  of  the  English,  again,  as  a 
nation  of  shopkeepers,  so  these  persons  affected  to  con 
sider  the  multitude  of  their  countrymen  as  uuwarlike 
artisans,  —  forgetting  that  Paul  Revere  taught  himself 
the  value  of  liberty  in  working  upon  gold,  and  Na 
thaniel  Greene  fitted  himself  to  shape  armies  in  the 
labor  of  forging  iron. 

These  persons  have  learned  better  now.  The  brav 
ery  of  our  free  working-people  was  overlaid,  but  not 
smothered ;  sunken,  but  not  drowned.  The  hands 
which  had  been  busy  conquering  the  elements  had 
only  to  change  their  weapons  and  their  adversaries, 
and  they  were  as  ready  to  conquer  the  masses  of  living 
force  opposed  to  them  as  they  had  been  to  build  towns, 
to  dam  rivers,  to  hunt  whales,  to  harvest  ice,  to  hammer 
brute  matter  into  every  shape  civilization  can  ask  for. 

Another  great  fact  came  to  the  surface,  and  is  com 
ing  up  every  day  in  new  shapes,  —  that  we  are  one 
people.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  a  man  is  a  man  in 
Maine  or  Minnesota,  but  not  so  easy  to  feel  it,  all 
through  our  bones  and  marrow.  The  camp  is  depro- 
vincializing  us  very  fast.  Brave  Winthrop,  marching 
with  the  city  Mtgants,  seems  to  have  been  a  little 
startled  to  find  how  wonderfully  human  were  the  hard- 
handed  men  of  the  Eighth  Massachusetts.  It  takes  all 
the  nonsense  out  of  everybody,  or  ought  to  do  it,  to  see 
how  fairly  the  real  manhood  of  a  country  is  distributed 


BREAD   AND  THE  NEWSPAPER.  11 

ovei  its  surface.  And  then,  just  as  we  are  beginning 
to  think  our  own  soil  has  a  monopoly  of  heroes  as  well 
as  of  cotton,  up  turns  a  regiment  of  gallant  Irishmen, 
like  the  Sixty-ninth,  to  show  us  that  continental  pro 
vincialism  is  as  bad  as  that  of  Coos  County,  New 
Hampshire,  or  of  Broadway,  New  York. 

Here,  too,  side  by  side  in  the  same  great  camp,  are 
half  a  dozen  chaplains,  representing  half  a  dozen 
modes  of  religious  belief.  When  the  masked  battery 
opens,  does  the  "  Baptist "  Lieutenant  believe  in  his 
heart  that  God  takes  better  care  of  him  than  of  his 
"  Congregationalist "  Colonel  ?  Does  any  man  really 
suppose,  that,  of  a  score  of  noble  young  fellows  who 
have  just  laid  down  their  lives  for  their  country,  the 
Homoousians  are  received  to  the  mansions  of  bliss, 
and  the  ffomoiousians  translated  from  the  battle-field 
to  the  abodes  of  everlasting  woe?  War  not  only 
teaches  what  man  can  be,  but  it  teaches  also  what  he 
must  not  be.  He  must  not  be  a  bigot  and  a  fool  in 
the  presence  of  that  day  of  judgment  proclaimed  by  the 
trumpet  which  calls  to  battle,  and  where  a  man  should 
have  but  two  thoughts :  to  do  his  duty,  and  trust  his 
Maker.  Let  our  brave  dead  come  back  from  the  fields 
where  they  have  fallen  for  law  and  liberty,  and  if  you 
will  follow  them  to  their  graves,  you  will  find  out  what 
the  Broad  Church  means  ;  the  narrow  church  is  spar 
ing  of  its  exclusive  formulae  over  the  coffins  wrapped 
in  the  flag  which  the  fallen  heroes  had  defended !  Very 
little  comparatively  do  we  hear  at  such  times  of  the 
dogmas  on  which  men  differ ;  very  much  of  the  faith 
and  trust  in  which  all  sincere  Christians  can  agree. 
It  is  a  noble  lesson,  and  nothing  less  noisy  than  the 
voice  of  cannon  can  teach  it  so  that  it  shall  be  heard 
over  all  the  angry  cries  of  theological  disputants. 


12         PAGES  FROM  AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

Now,  too,  we  have  a  chance  to  test  the  sagacity  of 
our  friends,  and  to  get  at  their  principles  of  judgment. 
Perhaps  most  of  us  will  agree  that  our  faith  in  domes* 
tic  prophets  has  been  diminished  by  the  experience  of 
the  last  six  mouths.  We  had  the  notable  predictions 
attributed  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  which  so  unpleas 
antly  refused  to  fulfil  themselves.  We  were  infested 
at  one  time  with  a  set  of  ominous-looking  seers,  who 
shook  their  heads  and  muttered  obscurely  about  some 
mighty  preparations  that  were  making  to  substitute  the 
rule  of  the  minority  for  that  of  the  majority.  Organ 
izations  were  darkly  hinted  at ;  some  thought  our  ar 
mories  would  be  seized;  and  there  are  not  wanting 
ancient  women  in  the  neighboring  University  town 
who  consider  that  the  country  was  saved  by  the  in 
trepid  band  of  students  who  stood  guard,  night  after 
night,  over  the  G.  K.  cannon  and  the  pile  of  balls  in 
the  Cambridge  Arsenal. 

As  a  general  rule,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  best 
prophecies  are  those  which  the  sages  remember  after 
the  event  prophesied  of  has  come  to  pass,  and  remind 
us  that  they  have  made  long  ago.  Those  who  are  rash 
enough  to  predict  publicly  beforehand  commonly  give 
us  what  they  hope,  or  what  they  fear,  or  some  conclu 
sion  from  an  abstraction  of  their  own,  or  some  guess 
founded  on  private  information  not  half  so  good  as 
what  everybody  gets  who  reads  the  papers,  —  never 
by  any  possibility  a  word  that  we  can  depend  on,  sim 
ply  because  there  are  cobwebs  of  contingency  between 
every  to-day  and  to-morrow  that  no  field-glass  can  pen- 
ft  i  at r  when  fifty  of  them  lie  woven  one  over  another. 
Prophesy  as  much  as  you  like,  but  always  hedge.  Say 
that  you  think  the  rebels  are  weaker  than  is  commonly 
supposed,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they  may  prove 


BREAD   AND   THE  NEWSPAPER.  13 

to  be  even  stronger  than  is  anticipated.  Say  what  you 
like,  —  only  don't  be  too  peremptory  and  dogmatic ; 
we  know  that  wiser  men  than  you  have  been  notori 
ously  deceived  in  their  predictions  in  this  very  matter. 

Ibis  et  redibis  nunquam  in  bello  peribis. 

Let  that  be  your  model ;  and  remember,  on  peril  of 
your  reputation  as  a  prophet,  not  to  put  a  stop  before 
or  after  the  nunquam. 

There  are  two  or  three  facts  connected  with  time, 
besides  that  already  referred  to,  which  strike  us  very 
forcibly  in  their  relation  to  the  great  events  passing 
around  us.  We  spoke  of  the  long  period  seeming  to 
have  elapsed  since  this  war  began.  The  buds  were 
then  swelling  which  held  the  leaves  that  are  still 
green.  It  seems  as  old  as  Time  himself.  We  cannot 
fail  to  observe  how  the  mind  brings  together  the  scenes 
of  to-day  and  those  of  the  old  Revolution.  We  shut 
up  eighty  years  into  each  other  like  the  joints  of  a 
pocket-telescope.  When  the  young  men  from  Middle 
sex  dropped  in  Baltimore  the  other  day,  it  seemed  to 
bring  Lexington  and  the  other  Nineteenth  of  April 
close  to  us.  War  has  always  been  the  mint  in  which 
the  world's  history  has  been  coined,  and  now  every 
day  or  week  or  month  has  a  new  medal  for  us.  It  was 
Warren  that  the  first  impression  bore  in  the  last  great 
coinage ;  if  it  is  Ellsworth  now,  the  new  face  hardly 
seems  fresher  than  the  old.  All  battle-fields  are  alike 
in  their  main  features.  The  young  fellows  who  fell  in 
our  earlier  struggle  seemed  like  old  men  to  us  until 
within  these  few  months ;  now  we  remember  they 
were  like  these  fiery  youth  we  are  cheering  as  they  go 
to  the  fight;  it  seems  as  if  the  grass  of  our  bloody 
hillside  was  crimsoned  but  yesterday,  and  the  cannon- 


14          PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

ball  imbedded  in  the  church-tower  would  feel  warm,  if 
we  laid  our  hand  upon  it. 

Nay,  in  this  our  quickened  life  we  feel  that  all  the 
battles  from  earliest  time  to  our  own  day,  where  Right 
and  Wrong  have  grappled,  are  but  one  great  battle, 
varied  with  brief  pauses  or  hasty  bivouacs  upon  the 
field  of  conflict.  The  issues  seem  to  vary,  but  it  is  al 
ways  a  right  against  a  claim,  and,  however  the  strug 
gle  of  the  hour  may  go,  a  movement  onward  of  tho 
campaign,  which  uses  defeat  as  well  as  victory  to  serve 
its  mighty  ends.  The  very  implements  of  our  warfare 
change  less  than  we  think.  Our  bullets  and  cannon- 
balls  have  lengthened  into  bolts  like  those  which  whis 
tled  out  of  old  arbalests.  Our  soldiers  fight  with 
weapons,  such  as  are  pictured  on  the  walls  of  Theban 
tombs,  wearing  a  newly  invented  head-gear  as  old  as 
the  days  of  the  Pyramids. 

Whatever  miseries  this  war  brings  upon  us,  it  is 
making  us  wiser,  and,  we  trust,  better.  Wiser,  for 
we  are  learning  our  weakness,  our  narrowness,  our 
selfishness,  our  ignorance,  in  lessons  of  sorrow  and 
shame.  Better,  because  all  that  is  noble  in  men  and 
women  is  demanded  by  the  time,  and  our  people  are 
rising  to  the  standard  the  time  calls  for.  For  this  is 
the  question  the  hour  is  putting  to  each  of  us :  Are 
you  ready,  if  need  be,  to  sacrifice  all  that  you  have 
and  hope  for  in  this  world,  that  the  generations  to  fol 
low  you  may  inherit  a  whole  country  whose  natural 
condition  shall  be  peace,  and  not  a  broken  province 
which  must  live  under  the  perpetual  threat,  if  not  in 
the  constant  presence,  of  war  and  all  that  war  brings 
with  it  ?  If  we  are  all  ready  for  this  sacrifice,  battles 
may  be  lost,  but  the  campaign  and  its  grand  object 
must  be  won. 


BREAD    AND   THE   NEWSPAPER.  15 

Heaven  is  very  kind  in  its  way  of  putting  questions 
to  mortals.  We  are  not  abruptly  asked  to  give  up  all 
that  we  most  care  for,  in  view  of  the  momentous  issues 
before  us.  Perhaps  we  shall  never  be  asked  to  give 
up  all,  but  we  have  alreadv  been  called  upon  to  part 
with  much  that  is  dear  to  us,  and  should  be  ready  to 
yield  the  rest  as  it  is  called  for.  The  time  may  come 
when  even  the  cheap  public  print  shall  be  a  burden 
our  means  cannot  support,  and  we  can  only  listen 
in  the  square  that  was  once  the  market-place  to  the 
voices  of  those  who  proclaim  defeat  or  victory.  Then 
there  will  be  only  our  daily  food  left.  When  we  have 
nothing  to  read  and  nothing  to  eat,  it  will  be  a  favor 
able  moment  to  offer  a  compromise.  At  present  we 
have  all  that  nature  absolutely  demands,  —  we  can 
live  on  bread  and  the  newspaper. 


n. 

MY  HUNT  AFTER  "THE  CAPTAIN." 

IN  the  dead  of  the  night  which  closed  upon  the 
bloody  field  of  Antietam,  my  household  was  startled 
from  its  slumbers  by  the  loud  summons  of  a  tele 
graphic  messenger.  The  air  had  been  heavy  all  day 
with  rumors  of  battle,  and  thousands  and  tens  of  thou 
sands  had  walked  the  streets  with  throbbing  hearts, 
in  dread  anticipation  of  the  tidings  any  hour  might 
bring. 

We '  rose  hastily,  and  presently  the  messenger  was 
admitted.  I  took  the  envelope  from  his  hand,  opened 
it,  and  read :  — 

HAGERSTOWN  17th 
To H 

Capt  H wounded  shot  through  the  neck  thought 

not  mortal  at  Keedysville 

WILLIAM  G  LEDUC 

Through  the  neck,  —  no  bullet  left  in  wound.  Wind 
pipe,  food-pipe,  carotid,  jugular,  half  a  dozen  smaller, 
but  still  formidable  vessels,  a  great  braid  of  nerves, 
each  as  big  as  a  lamp-wick,  spinal  cord,  —  ought  to 
kill  at  once,  if  at  all.  Thought  not  mortal,  or  not 
thought  mortal,  —  which  was  it  ?  The  first ;  that  is 
better  than  the  second  would  be.  — "  Keedysville,  a 
post-office,  Washington  Co.,  Maryland."  Leduc  ?  Le- 
duc  ?  Don't  remember  that  name.  —  The  boy  is  wait- 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN."  17 

ing  for  his  money.  A  dollar  and  thirteen  cents.  Has 
nobody  got  thirteen  cents  ?  Don't  keep  that  boy  wait 
ing,  —  how  do  we  know  what  messages  he  has  got  to 
carry  ? 

The  boy  had  another  message  to  carry.  It  was  to 
the  father  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Wilder  Dwight,  in 
forming  him  that  his  son  was  grievously  wounded  in 
the  same  battle,  and  was  lying  at  Boonsborough,  a 
town  a  few  miles  this  side  of  Keedysville.  This  I 
learned  the  next  morning  from  the  civil  and  attentive 
officials  at  the  Central  Telegraph  Office. 

Calling  upon  this  gentleman,  I  found  that  he  meant 
to  leave  in  the  quarter  past  two  o'clock  train,  taking 
with  him  Dr.  George  H.  Gay,  an  accomplished  and 
energetic  surgeon,  equal  to  any  difficult  question  or 
pressing  emergency.  I  agreed  to  accompany  them, 
and  we  met  in  the  cars.  I  felt  myself  peculiarly  for 
tunate  in  having  companions  whose  society  would  be  a 
pleasure,  whose  feelings  would  harmonize  with  my  own, 
and  whose  assistance  I  might,  in  case  of  need,  be  glad 
to  claim. 

It  is  of  the  journey  which  we  began  together,  and 
which  I  finished  apart,  that  I  mean  to  give  my  "  At 
lantic  "  readers  an  account.  They  must  let  me  tell  my 
story  in  my  own  way,  speaking  of  many  little  matters 
that  interested  or  amused  me,  and  which  a  certain 
leisurely  class  of  elderly  persons,  who  sit  at  their  fire 
sides  and  never  travel,  will,  I  hope,  follow  with  a  kind 
of  interest.  For,  besides  the  main  object  of  my  ex 
cursion,  I  could  not  help  being  excited  by  the  inci 
dental  sights  and  occurrences  of  a  trip  which  to  a  com 
mercial  traveller  or  a  newspaper-reporter  would  seem 
quite  commonplace  and  undeserving  of  record.  There 
are  periods  in  which  all  places  and  people  seem  to  be 


18          PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

in  a  conspiracy  to  impress  us  with  their  individuality, 
in  which  every  ordinary  locality  seems  to  assume  a 
special  significance  and  to  claim  a  particular  notice, 
in  which  every  person  we  meet  is  either  an  old  acquaint 
ance  or  a  character  ;  days  in  which  the  strangest  coin 
cidences  are  continually  happening,  so  that  they  get 
to  be  the  rule,  and  not  the  exception.  Some  might 
naturally  think  that  anxiety  and  the  weariness  of  a 
prolonged  search  after  a  near  relative  would  have  pre 
vented  my  taking  any  interest  in  or  paying  any  regard 
to  the  little  matters  around  me.  Perhaps  it  had  just 
the  contrary  effect,  and  acted  like  a  diffused  stimulus 
upon  the  attention.  When  all  the  faculties  are  wide 
awake  in  pursuit  of  a  single  object,  or  fixed  in  the 
spasm  of  an  absorbing  emotion,  they  are  oftentimes 
clairvoyant  in  a  marvellous  degree  in  respect  to  many 
collateral  things,  as  Wordsworth  has  so  forcibly  illus 
trated  in  his  sonnet  on  the  Boy  of  Windermere,  and 
as  Hawthorne  has  developed  with  such  metaphysical 
accuracy  in  that  chapter  of  his  wondrous  story  where 
Hester  walks  forth  to  meet  her  punishment. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  —  though  I  set  out  with  a  full 
and  heavy  heart,  though  many  times  my  blood  chilled 
with  what  were  perhaps  needless  and  unwise  fears, 
though  I  broke  through  all  my  habits  without  thinking 
about  them,  which  is  almost  as  hard  in  certain  circum 
stances  as  for  one  of  our  young  fellows  to  leave  his 
sweetheart  and  go  into  a  Peninsular  campaign,  though 
I  did  not  always  know  when  I  was  hungry  nor  dis 
cover  that  I  was  thirsting,  though  I  had  a  worrying 
ache  and  inward  tremor  underlying  all  the  outward 
play  of  the  senses  and  the  mind,  yet  it  is  the  simple 
truth  that  I  did  look  out  of  the  car-windows  with  an 
eye  for  all  that  passed,  that  I  did  take  cognizance  of 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  19 

strange  sights  and  singular  people,  that  I  did  act  much 
as  persons  act  from  the  ordinary  promptings  of  curios 
ity,  and  from  time  to  time  even  laugh  very  much  as 
others  do  who  are  attacked  with  a  convulsive  sense  of 
the  ridiculous,  the  epilepsy  of  the  diaphragm. 

By  a  mutual  compact,  we  talked  little  in  the  cars. 
A  communicative  friend  is  the  greatest  nuisance  to 
have  at  one's  side  during  a  railroad  journey,  especially 
if  his  conversation  is  stimulating  and  in  itself  agreeable. 
"  A  fast  train  and  a  '  slow '  neighbor,"  is  my  motto. 
Many  times,  when  I  have  got  upon  the  cars,  expecting 
to  be  magnetized  into  an  hour  or  two  of  blissful  rev 
erie,  my  thoughts  shaken  up  by  the  vibrations  into 
all  sorts  of  new  and  pleasing  patterns,  arranging  them 
selves  in  curves  and  nodal  points,  like  the  grains  of 
sand  in  Chladni's  famous  experiment,  —  fresh  ideas 
coming  up  to  the  surface,  as  the  kernels  do  when  a 
measure  of  corn  is  jolted  in  a  farmer's  wagon,  —  all 
this  without  volition,  the  mechanical  impulse  alone 
keeping  the  thoughts  in  motion,  as  the  mere  act  of 
carrying  certain  watches  in  the  pocket  keeps  them 
wound  up,  —  many  times,  I  say,  just  as  my  brain  was 
beginning  to  creep  and  hum  with  this  delicious  loco 
motive  intoxication,  some  dear  detestable  friend,  cordial, 
intelligent,  social,  radiant,  has  come  up  and  sat  down 
by  me  and  opened  a  conversation  which  has  broken  my 
day-dream,  unharnessed  the  flying  horses  that  were 
whirling  along  my  fancies  and  hitched  on  the  old  weary 
omnibus-team  of  every-day  associations,  fatigued  my 
hearing  and  attention,  exhausted  my  voice,  and  milked 
the  breasts  of  my  thought  dry  during  the  hour  when 
they  should  have  been  filling  themselves  full  of  fresh 
juices.  My  friends  spared  me  this  trial. 

So,  then,  I  sat  by  the  window  and  enjoyed  the  slight 


20          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

tipsiness  produced  by  short,  limited,  rapid  oscillations, 
which  I  take  to  be  the  exhilarating  stage  of  that  con 
dition  which  reaches  hopeless  inebriety  in  what  we 
know  as  sea-sickness.  Where  the  horizon  opened 
widely,  it  pleased  me  to  watch  the  curious  effect  of  the 
rapid  movement  of  near  objects  contrasted  with  the 
slow  motion  of  distant  ones.  Looking  from  a  right- 
hand  window,  for  instance,  the  fences  close  by  glide 
swiftly  backward,  or  to  the  right,  while  the  distant  hills 
not  only  do  not  appear  to  move  backward,  but  look  by 
contrast  with  the  fences  near  at  hand  as  if  they  were 
moving  forward,  or  to  the  left ;  and  thus  the  whole 
landscape  becomes  a  mighty  wheel  revolving  about  an 
imaginary  axis  somewhere  in  the  middle-distance 

My  companions  proposed  to  stay  at  one  of  the  best- 
known  and  longest-established  of  the  New- York  cara 
vansaries,  and  I  accompanied  them.  We  were  par 
ticularly  well  lodged,  and  not  uncivilly  treated.  The 
traveller  who  supposes  that  he  is  to  repeat  the  melan 
choly  experience  of  Shenstone,  and  have  to  sigh  over 
the  reflection  that  he  has  found  "  his  warmest  welcome 
at  an  inn,"  has  something  to  learn  at  the  offices  of  the 
great  city  hotels.  The  unheralded  guest  who  is  hon 
ored  by  mere  indifference  may  think  himself  blessed 
with  singular  good-fortune.  If  the  despot  of  the 
Patent- Annunciator  is  only  mildly  contemptuous  in  his 
manner,  let  the  victim  look  upon  it  as  a  personal  favor. 
The  coldest  welcome  that  a  threadbare  curate  ever  got 
at  the  door  of  a  bishop's  palace,  the  most  icy  reception 
that  a  country  cousin  ever  received  at  the  city  mansion 
of  a  mushroom  millionaire,  is  agreeably  tepid,  com 
pared  to  that  which  the  Rhadamanthus  who  dooms  you 
to  the  more  or  less  elevated  circle  of  his  inverted  In 
ferno  vouchsafes,  as  you  step  up  to  enter  your  name  on 


MY   HUNT  AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN."  21 

his  dog's-eared  register.  I  have  less  hesitation  in  un 
burdening  myself  of  this  uncomfortable  statement,  as 
on  this  particular  trip  I  met  with  more  than  one  ex 
ception  to  the  rule.  Officials  become  brutalized,  I 
suppose,  as  a  matter  of  course.  One  cannot  expect  an 
office  clerk  to  embrace  tenderly  every  stranger  who 
comes  in  with  a  carpet-bag,  or  a  telegraph  operator  to 
burst  into  tears  over  every  unpleasant  message  he  re 
ceives  for  transmission.  Still,  humanity  is  not  always 
totally  extinguished  in  these  persons.  I  discovered  a 
youth  in  a  telegraph  office  of  the  Continental  Hotel,  in 
Philadelphia,  who  was  as  pleasant  in  conversation,  and 
as  graciously  responsive  to  inoffensive  questions,  as  if 
I  had  been  his  childless  opulent  uncle  and  my  will  not 
made. 

On  the  road  again  the  next  morning,  over  the  ferry, 
into  the  cars  with  sliding  panels  and  fixed  windows,  so 
that  in  summer  the  whole  side  of  the  car  may  be  made 
transparent.  New  Jersey  is,  to  the  apprehension  of  a 
traveller,  a  double-headed  suburb  rather  than  a  State. 
Its  dull  red  dust  looks  like  the  dried  and  powdered 
mud  of  a  battle-field.  Peach-trees  are  common,  and 
champagne-orchards.  Canal-boats,  drawn  by  mules, 
swim  by,  feeling  their  way  along  like  blind  men  led  by 
dogs.  I  had  a  mighty  passion  come  over  me  to  be  the 
captain  of  one,  —  to  glide  back  and  forward  upon  a 
sea  never  roughened  by  storms,  —  to  float  where  I 
could  not  sink,  —  to  navigate  where  there  is  no  ship 
wreck,  —  to  lie  languidly  on  the  deck  and  govern  the 
huge  craft  by  a  word  or  the  movement  of  a  finger : 
there  was  something  of  railroad  intoxication  in  the 
fancy:  but  who  has  not  often  envied  a  cobbler  in 
his  stall ? 

The   boys  cry  the  "  N'-York  Heddle,"  instead   of 


22         PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

44  Herald  " ;  I  remember  that  years  ago  in  Philadel 
phia  ;  we  must  be  getting  near  the  farther  end  of  the 
dumb-bell  suburb.  A  bridge  has  been  swept  away  by 
a  rise  of  the  waters,  so  we  must  approach  Philadel 
phia  by  the  river.  Her  physiognomy  is  not  distin 
guished  ;  nez  camus,  as  a  Frenchman  would  say ;  no 
illustrious  steeple,  no  imposing  tower ;  the  water-edge 
of  the  town  looking  bedraggled,  like  the  flounce  of  a 
vulgar  rich  woman's  dress  that  trails  on  the  sidewalk. 
The  New  Ironsides  lies  at  one  of  the  wharves,  ele 
phantine  in  bulk  and  color,  her  sides  narrowing  as 
they  rise,  like  the  walls  of  a  hock-glass. 

I  went  straight  to  the  house  in  Walnut  Street 
where  the  Captain  would  be  heard  of,  if  anywhere  in 
this  region.  His  lieutenant-colonel  was  there,  gravely 
wounded ;  his  college-friend  and  comrade  in  arms,  a 
son  of  the  house,  was  there,  injured  in  a  similar  way  ; 
another  soldier,  brother  of  the  last,  was  there,  pros 
trate  with  fever.  A  fourth  bed  was  waiting  ready  for 
the  Captain,  but  not  one  word  had  been  heard  of  him, 
though  inquiries  had  been  made  in  the  towns  from 
and  through  which  the  father  had  brought  his  two  sons 
and  the  lieutenant-colonel.  And  so  my  search  is,  like 
a  "  Ledger  "  story,  to  be  continued. 

I  rejoined  my  companions  in  time  to  take  the  noon* 
train  for  Baltimore.  Our  company  was  gaining  in 
number  as  it  moved  onwards.  We  had  found  upon 
the  train  from  New  York  a  lovely,  lonely  lady,  the 
wife  of  one  of  our  most  spirited  Massachusetts  offi 
cers,  the  brave  Colonel  of  the th  Regiment,  going 

to  seek  her  wounded  husband  at  Middletown,  a  place 
lying  directly  in  our  track.  She  was  the  light  of  our 
party  while  we  were  together  on  our  pilgrimage,  a 
fair,  gracious  woman,  gentle,  but  courageous, 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  23 

"  ful  plesant  and  amiable  of  port, 

estate lich  of  manere, 
And  to  ben  holden  digne  of  reverence." 

On  the  road  from  Philadelphia,  I  found  in  the  same 
car  with  our  party  Dr.  William  Hunt  of  Philadelphia, 
who  had  most  kindly  and  faithfully  attended  the  Cap 
tain,  then  the  Lieutenant,  after  a  wound  received  at 
Ball's  Bluff,  which  came  very  near  being  mortal.  He 
was  going  upon  an  errand  of  mercy  to  the  wounded, 
and  found  he  had  in  his  memorandum-book  the  name 
of  our  lady's  husband,  the  Colonel,  who  had  been 
commended  to  his  particular  attention. 

Not  long  after  leaving  Philadelphia,  we  passed  a  soli 
tary  sentry  keeping  guard  over  a  short  railroad  bridge. 
It  was  the  first  evidence  that  we  were  approaching  the 
perilous  borders,  the  marches  where  the  North  and  the 
South  mingle  their  angry  hosts,  where  the  extremes 
of  our  so-called  civilization  meet  in  conflict,  and  the 
fierce  slave-driver  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  stares  into 
the  stern  eyes  of  the  forest-feller  from  the  banks  of 
the  Aroostook.  All  the  way  along,  the  bridges  were 
guarded  more  or  less  strongly.  In  a  vast  country  like 
ours,  communications  play  a  far  more  complex  part 
than  in  Europe,  where  the  whole  territory  available 
for  strategic  purposes  is  so  comparatively  limited. 
Belgium,  for  instance,  has  long  been  the  bowling-alley 
where  kings  roll  cannon-balls  at  each  other's  armies ; 
but  here  we  are  playing  the  game  of  live  ninepins 
without  any  alley. 

We  were  obliged  to  stay  in  Baltimore  over  night, 
as  we  were  too  late  for  the  train  to  Frederick.  At 
the  Eutaw  House,  where  we  found  both  comfort  and 
courtesy,  we  met  a  number  of  friends,  who  beguiled 
the  evening  hours  for  us  in  the  most  agreeable  man 


24          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

ner.  We  devoted  some  time  to  procuring  surgical 
and  other  articles,  such  as  might  be  useful  to  our 
friends,  or  to  others,  if  our  friends  should  not  need 
them.  In  the  morning,  I  found  myself  seated  at  the 
breakfast-table  next  to  General  Wool.  It  did  not 
surprise  me  to  find  the  General  very  far  from  expan 
sive.  With  Fort  McHenry  on  his  shoulders  and  Bal 
timore  in  his  breeches-pocket,  and  the  weight  of  a  mil 
itary  department  loading  down  his  social  safety-valves, 
I  thought  it  a  great  deal  for  an  officer  in  his  trying 
position  to  select  so  very  obliging  and  affable  an  aid 
as  the  gentleman  who  relieved  him  of  the  burden  of 
attending  to  strangers. 

We  left  the  Eutaw  House,  to  take  the  cars  for  Fred 
erick.  As  we  stood  waiting  on  the  platform,  a  tele 
graphic  message  was  handed  in  silence  to  my  companion. 
Sad  news :  the  lifeless  body  of  the  son  he  was  hasten 
ing  to  see  was  even  now  on  its  way  to  him  in  Baltimore. 
It  was  no  time  for  empty  words  of  consolation:  I 
knew  what  he  had  lost,  and  that  now  was  not  the  time 
to  intrude  upon  a  grief  borne  as  men  bear  it,  felt  as 
women  feel  it. 

Colonel  Wilder  Dwight  was  first  made  known  to  me 
as  the  friend  of  a  beloved  relative  of  my  own,  who 
was  with  him  during  a  severe  illness  in  Switzerland, 
and  for  whom  while  living,  and  for  whose  memory 
when  dead,  he  retained  the  warmest  affection.  Since 
that  the  story  of  his  noble  deeds  of  daring,  of  his  cap 
ture  and  escape,  and  a  brief  visit  home  before  he  was 
able  to  rejoin  his  regiment,  had  made  his  name  famil 
iar  to  many  among  us,  myself  among  the  number. 
His  memory  has  been  honored  by  those  who  had  the 
largest  opportunity  of  knowing  his  rare  promise,  as  a 
man  of  talents  and  energy  of  nature.  His  abounding 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN.'*  25 

vitality  must  have  produced  its  impression  on  all  who 
met  him ;  there  was  a  still  fire  about  him  which  any 
one  could  see  would  blaze  up  to  melt  all  difficulties  and 
recast  obstacles  into  implements  in  the  mould  of  an 
heroic  will.  These  elements  of  his  character  many  had 
the  chance  of  knowing ;  but  I  shall  always  associate 
him  with  the  memory  of  that  pure  and  noble  friend 
ship  which  made  me  feel  that  I  knew  him  before  I 
looked  upon  his  face,  and  added  a  personal  tenderness 
to  the  sense  of  loss  which  I  share  with  the  whole  com 
munity. 

Here,  then,  I  parted,  sorrowfully,  from  the  compan 
ions  with  whom  I  set  out  on  my  journey. 

In  one  of  the  cars,  at  the  same  station,  we  met  Gen 
eral  Shriver  of  Frederick,  a  most  loyal  Unionist,  whose 
name  is  synonymous  with  a  hearty  welcome  to  all  whom 
he  can  aid  by  his  counsel  and  his  hospitality.  He  took 
great  pains  to  give  us  all  the  information  we  needed, 
and  expressed  the  hope,  which  was  afterwards  fulfilled, 
to  the  great  gratification  of  some  of  us,  that  we  should 
meet  again  when  he  should  return  to  his  home. 

There  was  nothing  worthy  of  special  note  in  the  trip 
to  Frederick,  except  our  passing  a  squad  of  Rebel 
prisoners,  whom  I  missed  seeing,  as  they  flashed  by, 
but  who  were  said  to  be  a  most  forlorn-looking  crowd 
of  scarecrows.  Arrived  at  the  Monocacy  River,  about 
three  miles  this  side  of  Frederick,  we  came  to  a  halt, 
for  the  railroad  bridge  had  been  blown  up  by  the  Reb 
els,  and  its  iron  pillars  and  arches  were  lying  in  the 
bed  of  the  river.  The  unfortunate  wretch  who  fired 
the  train  was  killed  by  the  explosion,  and  lay  buried 
hard  by,  his  hands  sticking  out  of  the  shallow  grave 
into  which  he  had  been  huddled.  This  was  the  story 
they  told  us,  but  whether  true  or  not  I  must  leavo 


26          PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

to  the  correspondents  of  "Notes  and  Queries"  to 
settle. 

There  was  a  great  confusion  of  carriages  and  wag 
ons  at  the  stopping-place  of  the  train,  so  that  it  was 
a  long  time  before  I  could  get  anything  that  would 
carry  us.  At  last  1  was  lucky  enough  to  light  on  a 
sturdy  wagon,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  serviceable  bays,  and 
driven  by  James  Grayden,  with  whom  I  was  destined 
to  have  a  somewhat  continued  acquaintance.  We  took 
up  a  little  girl  who  had  been  in  Baltimore  during  the 
late  Rebel  inroad.  It  made  me  think  of  the  time  when 
my  own  mother,  at  that  time  six  years  old,  was  hur 
ried  off  from  Boston,  then  occupied  by  the  British  sol 
diers,  to  Newburyport,  and  heard  the  people  saying 
that  "  the  redcoats  were  coming,  killing  and  murder 
ing  everybody  as  they  went  along."  Frederick  looked 
cheerful  for  a  place  that  had  so  recently  been  in  an 
enemy's  hands.  Here  and  there  a  house  or  shop  was 
shut  up,  but  the  national  colors  were  waving  in  all 
directions,  and  the  general  aspect  was  peaceful  and 
contented.  I  saw  no  bullet-marks  or  other  sign  of  the 
fighting  which  had  gone  on  in  the  streets.  The  Colo 
nel's  lady  was  taken  in  charge  by  a  daughter  of  that 
hospitable  family  to  which  we  had  been  commended  by 
its  head,  and  I  proceeded  to  inquire  for  wounded  offi 
cers  at  the  various  temporary  hospitals. 

At  the  United  States  Hotel,  where  many  were  lying, 
I  heard  mention  of  an  officer  in  an  upper  chamber, 
and,  going  there,  found  Lieutenant  Abbott,  of  the 
Twentieth  Massachusetts  Volunteers,  lying  ill  with 
what  looked  like  typhoid  fever.  While  there,  who 
should  come  in  but  the  almost  ubiquitous  Lieutenant 
Wilkins,  of  the  same  Twentieth,  whom  I  had  met  re 
peatedly  before  on  errands  of  kindness  or  duty,  and 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  27 

who  was  just  from  the  battle-ground.  He  was  going 
to  Boston  in  charge  of  the  body  of  the  lamented  Dr. 
Revere,  the  Assistant  Surgeon  of  the  regiment,  killed 
on  the  field.  From  his  lips  I  learned  something  of  the 
mishaps  of  the  regiment.  My  Captain's  wound  he 
spoke  of  as  less  grave  than  at  first  thought ;  but  he 
mentioned  incidentally  having  heard  a  story  recently 
that  he  was  killed,  —  a  fiction,  doubtless,  —  a  mistake, 
—  a  palpable  absurdity,  —  not  to  be  remembered  or 
made  any  account  of.  Oh  no !  but  what  dull  ache  is 
this  in  that  obscurely  sensitive  region,  somewhere  be 
low  the  heart,  where  the  nervous  centre  called  the  semi- 
lunar  ganglion  lies  unconscious  of  itself  until  a  great 
grief  or  a  mastering  anxiety  reaches  it  through  all  the 
non-conductors  which  isolate  it  from  ordinary  impres 
sions  ?  I  talked  awhile  with  Lieutenant  Abbott,  who 
lay  prostrate,  feeble,  but  soldier-like  and  uncomplain 
ing,  carefully  waited  upon  by  a  most  excellent  lady,  a 
captain's  wife,  New  England  born,  loyal  as  the  Liberty 
on  a  golden  ten-dollar  piece,  and  of  lofty  bearing 
enough  to  have  sat  for  that  goddess's  portrait.  She 
had  stayed  in  Frederick  through  the  Rebel  inroad,  and 
kept  the  star-spangled  banner  where  it  would  be  safe, 
to  unroll  it  as  the  last  Rebel  hoofs  clattered  off  from 
the  pavement  of  the  town. 

Near  by  Lieutenant  Abbott  was  an  unhappy  gentle 
man,  occupying  a  small  chamber,  and  filling  it  with 
his  troubles.  When  he  gets  well  and  plump,  I  know 
he  will  forgive  me  if  I  confess  that  I  could  not  help 
smiling  in  the  midst  of  my  sympathy  for  him.  He  had 
been  a  well-favored  man,  he  said,  sweeping  his  hand 
in  a  semicircle,  which  implied  that  his  acute-angled 
countenance  had  once  filled  the  goodly  curve  he  de 
scribed.  He  was  now  a  perfect  Don  Quixote  to  look 


28          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

upon.  Weakness  had  made  him  querulous,  as  it  does 
all  of  us,  and  he  piped  his  grievances  to  me  in  a  thin 
voice,  with  that  finish  of  detail  which  chronic  invalid- 
ism  alone  can  command.  He  was  starving,  —  he  could 
not  get  what  he  wanted  to  eat.  He  was  in  need  of 
stimulants,  and  he  held  up  a  pitifid  two-ounce  phial 
containing  three  thimblefuls  of  brandy,  —  his  \\liolr 
stock  of  that  encouraging  article.  Him  I  consoled  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  and  afterwards,  in  some  slight 
measure,  supplied  his  wants.  Feed  this  poor  gentle 
man  up,  as  these  good  people  soon  will,  and  I  should 
not  know  him,  nor  he  himself.  We  are  all  egotists  in 
sickness  and  debility.  An  animal  has  been  defined  as 
"  a  stomach  ministered  to  by  organs ; "  and  the  great 
est  man  comes  very  near  this  simple  formula  after  a 
month  or  two  of  fever  and  starvation. 

James  Graydeu  and  his  team  pleased  me  well 
enough,  and  so  I  made  a  bargain  with  him  to  take  us, 
the  lady  and  myself,  on  our  further  journey  as  far  as 
Middletown.  As  we  were  about  starting  from  the 
front  of  the  United  States  Hotel,  two  gentlemen  pre 
sented  themselves  and  expressed  a  wish  to  be  allowed 
to  share  our  conveyance.  I  looked  at  them  and  con 
vinced  myself  that  they  were  neither  Rebels  in  dis 
guise,  nor  deserters,  nor  camp-followers,  nor  miscre 
ants,  but  plain,  honest  men  on  a  proper  errand.  The 
first  of  them  I  will  pass  over  briefly.  He  was  a  young 
man  of  mild  and  modest  demeanor,  chaplain  to  a 
Pennsylvania  regiment,  which  he  was  going  to  r 
He  belonged  to  the  Moravian  Church,  of  which  I  had 
the  misfortune  to  know  little  more  than  what  I  had 
learned  from  Southey's  "  Life  of  Wesley,"  and  from 
the  exquisite  hymns  we  have  borrowed  from  its  rhap- 
sodists.  The  other  stranger  was  a  New  Englander  of 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN."  29 

respectable  appearance,  with  a  grave,  hard,  honest, 
hay-bearded  face,  who  had  come  to  serve  the  sick  and 
wounded  on  the  battle-field  and  in  its  immediate  neigh 
borhood.  There  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  men 
tion  his  name,  but  I  shall  content  myself  with  calling 
him  the  Philanthropist. 

So  we  set  forth,  the  sturdy  wagon,  the  serviceable 
bays,  with  James  Grayden  their  driver,  the  gentle 
lady,  whose  serene  patience  bore  up  through  all  de 
lays  and  discomforts,  the  Chaplain,  the  Philanthropist, 
and  myself,  the  teller  of  this  story. 

And  now,  as  we  emerged  from  Frederick,  we  struck 
at  once  upon  the  trail  from  the  great  battle-field.  The 
road  was  filled  with  straggling  and  wounded  soldiers. 
All  who  could  travel  on  foot,  —  multitudes  with  slight 
wounds  of  the  upper  limbs,  the  head,  or  face,  —  were 
told  to  take  up  their  beds,  —  a  light  burden  or  none  at 
all,  —  and  walk.  Just  as  the  battle-field  sucks  every 
thing  into  its  red  vortex  for  the  conflict,  so  does  it 
drive  everything  off  in  long,  diverging  rays  after  the 
fierce  centripetal  forces  have  met  and  neutralized  each 
other.  For  more  than  a  week  there  had  been  sharp 
fighting  all  along  this  road.  Through  the  streets  of 
Frederick,  through  Crampton's  Gap,  over  South  Moun 
tain,  sweeping  at  last  the  hills  and  the  woods  that  skirt 
the  windings  of  the  Antietam,  the  long  battle  had 
travelled,  like  one  of  those  tornadoes  which  tear  their 
path  through  our  fields  and  villages.  The  slain  of 
higher  condition,  "embalmed"  and  iron-cased,  were 
sliding  off  on  the  railways  to  their  far  homes ;  the 
dead  of  the  rank  and  file  were  being  gathered  up  and- 
committed  hastily  to  the  earth  ;  the  gravely  wounded 
were  cared  for  hard  by  the  scene  of  conflict,  or  pushed 
a  little  way  along  to  the  neighboring  villages;  while 


30  PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFK. 

those  who  could  walk  were  meeting  us,  as  I  have  said, 
at  every  step  in  the  road.  It  was  a  pitiable  sight, 
truly  pitiable,  yet  so  vast,  so  far  beyond  the  possibility 
of  relief,  that  many  single  sorrows  of  small  dimensions 
have  wrought  upon  my  feelings  more  than  the  sight  of 
this  great  caravan  of  maimed  pilgrims.  The  compan 
ionship  of  so  many  seemed  to  make  a  joint-stock  of 
their  suffering ;  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  individu 
alize  it,  and  so  bring  it  home,  as  one  can  do  with  a  sin 
gle  broken  limb  or  aching  wound.  Then  they  were 
all  of  the  male  sex,  and  in  the  freshness  or  the  prime 
of  their  strength.  Though  they  tramped  so  wearily 
along,  yet  there  was  rest  and  kind  nursing  in  store  for 
them.  These  wounds  they  bore  would  be  the  medals 
they  would  show  their  children  and  grandchildren  by 
and  by.  Who  would  not  rather  wear  his  decorations 
beneath  his  uniform  than  on  it  ? 

Yet  among  them  were  figures  which  arrested  our  at 
tention  and  sympathy.  Delicate  boys,  with  more  spirit 
than  strength,  flushed  with  fever  or  pale  with  exhaus 
tion  or  haggard  with  suffering,  dragged  their  weary 
limbs  along  as  if  each  step  would  exhaust  their  slender 
store  of  strength.  At  the  roadside  sat  or  lay  others, 
quite  spent  with  their  journey.  Here  and  there  was  a 
house  at  which  the  wayfarers  would  stop,  in  the  hope, 
I  fear  often  vain,  of  getting  refreshment ;  and  in  one 
place  was  a  clear,  cool  spring,  where  the  little  bands 
of  the  long  procession  halted  for  a  few  moments,  as 
the  trains  that  traverse  the  desert  rest  by  its  fountains. 
My  companions  had  brought  a  few  peaches  along  with 
them,  which  the  Philanthropist  bestowed  upon  the 
tired  and  thirsty  soldiers  with  a  satisfaction  which  wo 
all  shared.  I  had  with  me  a  small  flask  of  strong 
waters,  to  be  used  as  a  medicine  in  case  of  inward 


MY   HUNT   AFTER    "THE   CAPTAIN."  31 

grief.  From  this,  also,  he  dispensed  relief,  without 
hesitation,  to  a  poor  fellow  who  looked  as  if  he  needed 
it.  I  rather  admired  the  simplicity  with  which  he  ap 
plied  my  limited  means  of  solace  to  the  first-comer 
who  wanted  it  more  than  I ;  a  genuine  benevolent  im 
pulse  does  not  stand  on  ceremony,  and  had  I  perished 
of  colic  for  want  of  a  stimulus  that  night,  I  should  not 
have  reproached  my  friend  the  Philanthropist,  any 
more  than  I  grudged  my  other  ardent  friend  the  two 
dollars  and  more  which  it  cost  me  to  send  the  charita 
ble  message  he  left  in  my  hands. 

It  was  a  lovely  country  through  which  we  were  rid 
ing.  The  hillsides  rolled  away  into  the  distance, 
slanting  up  fair  and  broad  to  the  sun,  as  one  sees  them 
in  the  open  parts  of  the  Berkshire  Valley,  at  Lanes- 
borough,  for  instance,  or  in  the  many-hued  mountain 
chalice  at  the  bottom  of  which  the  Shaker  houses  of 
Lebanon  have  shaped  themselves  like  a  sediment  of 
cubical  crystals.  The  wheat  was  all  garnered,  and  the 
land  ploughed  for  a  new  crop.  There  was  Indian 
corn  standing,  but  I  saw  no  pumpkins  warming  their 
yellow  carapaces  in  the  sunshine  like  so  many  turtles  ; 
only  in  a  single  instance  did  I  notice  some  wretched 
little  miniature  specimens  in  form  and  hue  not  unlike 
those  colossal  oranges  of  our  cornfields.  The  rail- 
fences  were  somewhat  disturbed,  and  the  cinders  of 
extinguished  fires  showed  the  use  to  which  they  had 
been  applied.  The  houses  along  the  road  were  not  for 
the  most  part  neatly  kept ;  the  garden  fences  were 
poorly  built  of  laths  or  long  slats,  and  very  rarely 
of  trim  aspect.  The  men  of  this  region  seemed  to 
ride  in  the  saddle  very  generally,  rather  than  drive. 
They  looked  sober  and  stern,  less  curious  and  lively 
than  Yankees,  and  I  fancied  that  a  type  of  features 


32          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

familiar  to  us  in  the  countenance  of  the  late  John 
Tyler,  our  accidental  President,  was  frequently  met 
with.  The  women  were  still  more  distinguishable 
from  our  New  England  pattern.  Soft,  sallow,  succu 
lent,  delicately  finished  about  the  mouth  and  firmly 
shaped  about  the  chin,  dark-eyed,  full-throated,  the}' 
looked  as  if  they  had  been  grown  in  a  land  of  olives. 
There  was  a  little  toss  in  their  movement,  full  of  mu 
liebrity.  I  fancied  there  was  something  more  of  the 
duck  and  less  of  the  chicken  about  them,  as  compared 
with  the  daughters  of  our  leaner  soil ;  but  these  are 
mere  impressions  caught  from  stray  glances,  and  if 
there  is  any  offence  in  them,  my  fair  readers  may  con 
sider  them  all  retracted. 

At  intervals,  a  dead  horse  lay  by  the  roadside,  or  in 
the  fields,  unburied,  not  grateful  to  gods  or  men.  I 
saw  no  bird  of  prey,  no  ill-omened  fowl,  on  my  way 
to  the  carnival  of  death,  or  at  the  place  where  it  had 
been  held.  The  vulture  of  story,  the  crow  of  Talavera, 
the  "  twa  corbies  "  of  the  ghastly  ballad,  are  all  from 
Nature,  doubtless  ;  but  no  black  wing  was  spread  over 
these  animal  ruins,  and  no  call  to  the  banquet  pierced 
through  the  heavy-laden  and  sickening  air. 

Full  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  caring  little  for 
whom  or  what  they  met,  came  long  strings  of  army 
wagons,  returning  empty  from  the  front  after  supplies. 
James  Grayden  stated  it  as  his  conviction  that  they 
had  a  little  rather  run  into  a  fellow  than  not.  I  liked 
the  looks  of  these  equipages  and  their  drivers ;  they 
meant  business.  Drawn  by  mules  mostly,  six,  I  think, 
to  a  wagon,  powdered  well  with  dust,  wagon,  beast,  and 
driver,  they  came  jogging  along  the  road,  turning 
neither  to  right  nor  left,  —  some  driven  by  bearded, 
solemn  white  men,  some  by  careless,  saucy-looking 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  33 

negroes,  of  a  blackness  like  that  of  anthracite  or  ob 
sidian.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  about  them,  dead 
or  alive,  that  was  not  serviceable.  Sometimes  a  mule 
would  give  out  on  the  road  ;  then  he  was  left  where  he 
lay,  until  by  and  by  he  would  think  better  of  it,  and  g3t 
up,  when  the  first  public  wagon  that  came  along  would 
hitch  him  on,  and  restore  him  to  the  sphere  of  duty. 

It  was  evening  when  we  got  to  Middletown.  The 
gentle  lady  who  had  graced  our  homely  conveyance 
with  her  company  here  left  us.  She  found  her  nus- 
band,  the  gallant  Colonel,  in  very  comfortable  quar 
ters,  well  cared  for,  very  weak  from  the  effects  of  the 
fearful  operation  he  had  been  compelled  to  undergo, 
but  showing  calm  courage  to  endure  as  he  had  shown 
manly  energy  to  act.  It  was  a  meeting  full  of  hero 
ism  and  tenderness,  of  which  I  heard  more  than  there 
is  need  to  tell.  Health  to  the  brave  soldier,  and 
peace  to  the  household  over  which  so  fair  a  spirit  pre 
sides  ! 

Dr.  Thompson,  the  very  active  and  intelligent  sur 
gical  director  of  the  hospitals  of  the  pl?«e,  took  me 
in  charge.  He  carried  me  to  the  house  of  a  worthy 
and  benevolent  clergyman  of  the  German  Reformed 
Church,  where  I  was  to  take  tea  and  pass  the  night. 
What  became  of  the  Moravian  chaplain  I  did  not 
know ;  but  my  friend  the  Philanthropist  had  evidently 
made  up  his  mind  to  adhere  to  my  fortunes.  He  fol 
lowed  me,  therefore,  to  the  house  of  the  u  Dominie," 
as  a  newspaper  correspondent  calls  my  kind  host,  and 
partook  of  the  fare  there  furnished  me.  He  with 
drew  with  me  to  the  apartment  assigned  for  my 
slumbers,  and  slept  sweetly  on  the  same  pillow  where 
I  waked  and  tossed.  Nay,  I  do  affirm  that  he  did, 
unconsciously,  I  believe,  encroach  on  that  moiety  of 


34          PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

the  couch  which  I  had  flattered  myself  was  to  be  my 
own  through  the  watches  of  the  night,  and  that  I  was 
in  serious  doubt  at  one  time  whether  I  should  not  be 
gradually,  but  irresistibly,  expelled  from  the  bed 
which  I  had  supposed  destined  for  my  sole  possession. 
As  Ruth  clave  unto  Naomi,  so  my  friend  the  Philan 
thropist  clave  unto  me.  "  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will 
go  ;  and  where  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge."  A  really 
kind,  good  man,  full  of  zeal,  determined  to  help  some 
body,  and  absorbed  in  his  one  thought,  he  doubted 
nobody's  willingness  to  serve  him,  going,  as  he  was, 
on  a  purely  benevolent  errand.  When  he  reads  this, 
as  I  hope  he  will,  let  him  be  assured  of  my  esteem 
and  respect;  and  if  he  gained  any  accommodation 
from  being  in  my  company,  let  me  tell  him  that  I 
learned  a  lesson  from  his  active  benevolence.  I  could, 
however,  have  wished  to  hear  him  laugh  once  before 
we  parted,  perhaps  forever.  He  did  not,  to  the  best 
of  my  recollection,  even  smile  during  the  whole  period 
that  we  were  in  company.  I  am  afraid  that  a  light 
some  disposition  and  a  relish  for  humor  are  not  so 
common  in  those  whose  benevolence  takes  an  active 
turn  as  in  people  of  sentiment,  who  are  always  ready 
with  their  tears  and  abounding  in  passionate  expres 
sions  of  sympathy.  Working  philanthropy  is  a  prac 
tical  specialty,  requiring  not  a  mere  impulse,  but  a 
talent,  with  its  peculiar  sagacity  for  finding  its  objects, 
a  tact  for  selecting  its  agencies,  an  organizing  and  ar 
ranging  faculty,  a  steady  set  of  nerves,  and  a  consti 
tution  such  as  Sallust  describes  in  Catiline,  patient 
of  cold,  of  hunger,  and  of  watching.  Philanthropists 
are  commonly  grave,  occasionally  grim,  and  not  very 
rarely  morose.  Their  expansive  social  force  is  impris 
oned  as  a  working  power,  to  show  itself  only  through 


MY    HUNT    AFTER    "THE    CAPTAIN."  35 

its  legitimate  pistons  and  cranks.  The  tighter  the 
boiler,  the  less  it  whistles  and  sings  at  its  work. 
When  Dr.  Waterhouse,  in  1780,  travelled  with  How 
ard,  on  his  tour  among  the  Dutch  prisons  and  hospi 
tals,  he  found  his  temper  and  manners  very  different 
from  what  would  have  been  expected. 

My  benevolent  companion  having  already  made  a 
preliminary  exploration  of  the  hospitals  of  the  place, 
before  sharing  my  bed  with  him,  as  above  mentioned, 
I  joined  him  in  a  second  tour  through  them.  The  au 
thorities  of  Middletown  are  evidently  leagued  with  the 
surgeons  of  that  place,  for  such  a  break-neck  succession 
of  pitfalls  and  chasms  I  have  never  seen  in  the  streets 
of  a  civilized  town.  It  was  getting  late  in  the  even 
ing  when  we  began  our  rounds.  The  principal  collec 
tions  of  the  wounded  were  in  the  churches.  Boards 
were  laid  over  the  tops  of  the  pews,  on  these  some 
straw  was  spread,  and  on  this  the  wounded  lay,  with 
little  or  no  covering  other  than  such  scanty  clothes  as 
they  had  on.  There  were  wounds  of  all  degrees  of 
severity,  but  I  heard  no  groans  or  murmurs.  Most  of 
the  sufferers  were  hurt  in  the  limbs,  some  had  under 
gone  amputation,  and  all  had,  I  presume,  received  such 
attention  as  was  required.  Still,  it  was  but  a  rough 
and  dreary  kind  of  comfort  that  the  extemporized  hos 
pitals  suggested.  I  could  not  help  thinking  the  pa 
tients  must  be  cold  ;  but  they  were  used  to  camp  life, 
and  did  not  complain.  The  men  who  watched  were 
not  of  the  soft-handed  variety  of  the  race.  One  of 
them  was  smoking  his  pipe  as  he  went  from  bed  to  bed. 
I  saw  one  poor  fellow  who  had  been  shot  through  the 
breast ;  his  breathing  was  labored,  and  he  was  tossing, 
anxious  and  restless.  The  men  were  debating  about 
the  opiate  he  was  to  take,  and  I  was  thankful  that  I 


36          PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

happened  there  at  the  right  moment  to  see  that  he  was 
well  narcotized  for  the  night.  Was  it  possible  that 
my  Captain  could  be  lying  on  the  straw  in  one  of  these 
places  ?  Certainly  possible,  but  not  probable  ;  but  as 
the  lantern  was  held  over  each  bed,  it  was  with  a  kind 
of  thrill  that  I  looked  upon  the  features  it  illuminated. 
Many  times  as  I  went  from  hospital  to  hospital  in  my 
wanderings,  I  started  as  some  faint  resemblance,  —  the 
shade  of  a  young  man's  hair,  the  outline  of  his  half- 
turned  face,  —  recalled  the  presence  I  was  in  search  of. 
The  face  would  turn  towards  me,  and  the  momentary 
illusion  would  pass  away,  but  still  the  fancy  clung  to 
me.  There  was  no  figure  huddled  up  on  its  rude  couch, 
none  stretched  at  the  roadside,  none  toiling  languidly 
along  the  dusty  pike,  none  passing  in  car  or  in  ambu 
lance,  that  I  did  not  scrutinize,  as  if  it  might  be  that 
for  which  I  was  making  my  pilgrimage  to  the  battle 
field. 

"There  are  two  wounded  Secesh,"  said  my  compan 
ion.  I  walked  to  the  bedside  of  the  first,  who  was  an 
officer,  a  lieutenant,  if  I  remember  right,  from  North 
Carolina.  He  was  of  good  family,  son  of  a  judge  in 
one  of  the  higher  courts  of  his  State,  educated,  pleasant, 
gentle,  intelligent.  One  moment's  intercourse  with 
such  an  enemy,  lying  helpless  and  wounded  among 
strangers,  takes  away  all  personal  bitterness  towards 
those  with  whom  we  or  our  children  have  been  but  a 
few  hours  before  in  deadly  strife.  The  basest  lie  which 
the  murderous  contrivers  of  this  Rebellion  have  told 
is  that  which  tries  to  make  out  a  difference  of  race  in 
the  men  of  the  North  and  South.  It  would  be  worth 
a  year  of  battles  to  abolish  this  delusion,  though  the 
great  sponge  of  war  that  wiped  it  out  were  moistened 
with  the  best  blood  of  the  land.  My  Rebel  was  of 


MY    HUNT   AFTER    "THE   CAPTAIN."  37 

slight,  scholastic  habit,  and  spoke  as  one  accustomed 
to  tread  carefully  among  the  parts  of  speech.  It 
made  my  heart  ache  to  see  him,  a  man  finished  in  the 
humanities  and  Christian  culture,  whom  the  sin  of  his 
forefathers  and  the  crime  of  his  rulers  had  set  in  bar 
barous  conflict  against  others  of  like  training  with  his 
own,  —  a  man  who,  but  for  the  curse  which  our  gen 
eration  is  called  on  to  expiate,  would  have  taken  his 
part  in  the  beneficent  task  of  shaping  the  intelligence 
and  lifting  the  moral  standard  of  a  peaceful  and 
united  people. 

On  Sunday  morning,  the  twenty-first,  having  en 
gaged  James  Grayden  and  his  team,  I  set  out  with  the 
Chaplain  and  the  Philanthropist  for  Keedysville.  Our 
track  lay  through  the  South  Mountain  Gap,  and  led  us 
first  to  the  town  of  Boonsborough,  where,  it  will  be  re 
membered,  Colonel  Dwight  had  been  brought  after  the 
battle.  We  saw  the  positions  occupied  in  the  battle  of 
South  Mountain,  and  many  traces  of  the  conflict.  In 
one  situation  a  group  of  young  trees  was  marked  with 
shot,  hardly  one  having  escaped.  As  we  walked  by 
the  side  of  the  wagon,  the  Philanthropist  left  us  for  a 
while  and  climbed  a  hill,  where,  along  the  line  of  a 
fence,  he  found  traces  of  the  most  desperate  fighting. 
A  ride  of  some  three  hours  brought  us  to  Boonsbor 
ough,  where  I  roused  the  unfortunate  army  surgeon 
who  had  charge  of  the  hospitals,  and  who  was  trying 
to  get  a  little  sleep  after  his  fatigues  and  watchings. 
He  bore  this  cross  very  creditably,  and  helped  me  to 
explore  all  places  where  my  soldier  might  be  lying 
among  the  crowds  of  wounded.  After  the  useless 
search,  I  resumed  my  journey,  fortified  with  a  note  of 
introduction  to  Dr.  Letterman ;  also  with  a  bale  of 
oakum  which  I  was  to  carry  to  that  gentleman,  this 


38          PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

substance  being  employed  as  a  substitute  for  lint.  We 
were  obliged  also  to  procure  a  pass  to  Keedysville  from 
the  Provost  Marshal  of  Boonsborough.  As  we  came 
near  the  place,  we  learned  that  General  McClellan's 
head  quarters  had  been  removed  from  this  village  some 
miles  farther  to  the  front. 

On  entering  the  small  settlement  of  Keedysville,  a 
familiar  face  and  figure  blocked  the  way,  like  one  of 
Bunyan's  giants.  The  tall  form  and  benevolent  coun 
tenance,  set  off  by  long,  flowing  hair,  belonged  to  the 
excellent  Mayor  Frank  B.  Fay  of  Chelsea,  who,  like 
my  Philanthropist,  only  still  more  promptly,  had  come 
to  succor  the  wounded  of  the  great  battle.  It  was 
wonderful  to  see  how  his  single  personality  pervaded 
this  torpid  little  village ;  he  seemed  to  be  the  centre 
of  all  its  activities.  All  my  questions  he  answered 
clearly  and  decisively,  as  one  who  knew  everything 
that  was  going  on  in  the  place.  But  the  one  question 
I  had  come  five  hundred  miles  to  ask,  —  Where  is 
Captain  H.  ?  —  he  could  not  answer.  There  were 
some  thousands  of  wounded  in  the  place,  he  told  me, 
scattered  about  everywhere.  It  would  be  a  long  job 
to  hunt  up  my  Captain ;  the  only  way  would  be  to  go 
to  every  house  and  ask  for  him.  Just  then  a  medical 
officer  came  up. 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  Captain  H.  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Twentieth  ?  " 

••  Oh  yes ;  he  is  staying  in  that  house.  I  saw  him 
there,  doing  very  well." 

A  chorus  of  hallelujahs  arose  in  my  soul,  but  I  kept 
them  to  myself.  Now,  then,  for  our  twice-wounded 
volunteer,  our  young  centurion  whose  double-barred 
shoulder-straps  we  have  never  yet  looked  upon.  Let 
us  observe  the  proprieties,  however ;  no  swelling  up- 


Margaret  Kitzmuller 


ir  •  \f 

' 

"-    itAit1-'  >_ 


•    *. 


MY   HUNT   AFTER    "THE   CAPTAIN."  39 

ward  of  the  mother,  —  no  hysterica  passio,  —  we  do 
not  like  scenes.  A  calm  salutation,  —  then  swallow 
and  hold  hard.  That  is  about  the  programme. 

A  cottage  of  squared  logs,  filled  in  with  plaster,  and 
whitewashed.  A  little  yard  before  it,  with  a  gate 
swinging.  The  door  of  the  cottage  ajar,  —  no  one  vis 
ible  as  yet.  I  push  open  the  door  and  enter.  An  old 
woman,  Margaret  Kitzmuller  her  name  proves  to  be, 
is  the  first  person  I  see. 

" Captain  H.  here?" 

"  Oh  no,  sir,  —  left  yesterday  morning  for  Hagers- 
town,  —  in  a  milk-cart." 

The  Kitzmuller  is  a  beady-eyed,  cheery-looking  an 
cient  woman,  answers  questions  with  a  rising  inflection, 
and  gives  a  good  account  of  the  Captain,  who  got  into 
the  vehicle  without  assistance,  and  was  in  excellent 
spirits.  Of  course  he  had  struck  for  Hagerstown  as 
the  terminus  of  the  Cumberland  Valley  Railroad,  and 
was  on  his  way  to  Philadelphia,  vid  Chambersburg 
and  Harrisburg,  if  he  were  not  already  in  the  hospita 
ble  home  of  Walnut  Street,  where  his  friends  were 
expecting  him. 

I  might  follow  on  his  track  or  return  upon  my  own  ; 
the  distance  was  the  same  to  Philadelphia  through 
Harrisburg  as  through  Baltimore.  But  it  was  very 
difficult,  Mr.  Fay  told  me,  to  procure  any  kind  of  con 
veyance  to  Hagerstown  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  had 
James  Grayden  and  his  wagon  to  carry  me  back  to 
Frederick.  It  was  not  likely  that  I  should  overtake 
the  object  of  my  pursuit  with  nearly  thirty-six  hours 
start,  even  if  I  could  procure  a  conveyance  that  day. 
In  the  mean  time  James  was  getting  impatient  to  be  on 
his  return,  according  to  the  direction  of  his  employers. 
So  I  decided  to  go  back  with  him. 


40          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

But  there  was  the  great  battle-field  only  about  three 
miles  from  Keedysville,  and  it  was  impossible  to  go 
without  seeing  that.  James  Grayden's  directions  were 
peremptory,  but  it  was  a  case  for  the  higher  law.  I 
must  make  a  good  offer  for  an  extra  couple  of  hours, 
such  as  would  satisfy  the  owners  of  the  wagon,  and  en 
force  it  by  a  personal  motive.  I  did  this  handsomely, 
and  succeeded  without  difficulty.  To  add  brilliancy  to 
my  enterprise,  I  invited  the  Chaplain  and  the  Philan 
thropist  to  take  a  free  passage  with  me. 

We  followed  the  road  through  the  village  for  a 
space,  then  turned  off  to  the  right,  and  wandered 
somewhat  vaguely,  for  want  of  precise  directions,  over 
the  hills.  Inquiring  as  we  went,  we  forded  a  wide 
creek  in  which  soldiers  were  washing  their  clothes,  the 
name  of  which  we  did  not  then  know,  but  which  must 
have  been  the  Antietam.  At  one  point  we  met  a 
party,  women  among  them,  bringing  off  various  tro 
phies  they  had  picked  up  on  the  battle-field.  Still 
wandering  along,  we  were  at  last  pointed  to  a  hill  in 
the  distance,  a  part  of  the  siunmit  of  which  was  cov 
ered  with  Indian  corn.  There,  we  were  told,  some  of 
the  fiercest  fighting  of  the  day  had  been  done.  The 
fences  were  taken  down  so  as  to  make  a  passage  across 
the  fields,  and  the  tracks  worn  within  the  last  few  days 
looked  like  old  roads.  We  passed  a  fresh  grave  under 
a  tree  near  the  road.  A  board  was  nailed  to  the  tree, 
bearing  the  name,  as  well  as  I  could  make  it  out,  of 
Gardiner,  of  a  New  Hampshire  regiment. 

On  coming  near  the  brow  of  the  hill,  we  met  a  party 
carrying  picks  and  spades.  "  How  many  ?  "  "  Only 
one."  The  dead  were  nearly  all  buried,  then,  in  this 
region  of  the  field  of  strife.  We  stopped  the  wagon, 
and,  getting  out,  began  to  look  around  us.  Hard  by 


MY  HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  41 

was  a  large  pile  of  muskets,  scores,  if  not  hundreds, 
which  had  been  picked  up,  and  were  guarded  for  the 
Government.  A  long  ridge  of  fresh  gravel  rose  before 
us.  A  board  stuck  up  in  front  of  it  bore  this  inscrip 
tion,  the  first  part  of  which  was,  I  believe,  not  cor 
rect  :  "  The  Rebel  General  Anderson  and  80  Rebels 
are  buried  in  this  hole."  Other  smaller  ridges  were 
marked  with  the  number  of  dead  lying  under  them. 
The  whole  ground  was  strewed  with  fragments  of 
clothing,  haversacks,  canteens,  cap-boxes,  bullets,  car 
tridge-boxes,  cartridges,  scraps  of  paper,  portions  of 
bread  and  meat.  I  saw  two  soldiers'  caps  that  looked 
as  though  their  owners  had  been  shot  through  the 
head.  In  several  places  I  noticed  dark  red  patches 
where  a  pool  of  blood  had  curdled  and  caked,  as  some 
poor  fellow  poured  his  life  out  on  the  sod.  I  then 
wandered  about  in  the  cornfield.  It  surprised  me  to 
notice,  that,  though  there  was  every  mark  of  hard 
fighting  having  taken  place  here,  the  Indian  corn  was 
not  generally  trodden  down.  One  of  our  cornfields  is 
a  kind  of  forest,  and  even  when  fighting,  men  avoid 
the  tall  stalks  as  if  they  were  trees.  At  the  edge  of 
this  cornfield  lay  a  gray  horse,  said  to  have  belonged 
to  a  Rebel  colonel,  who  was  killed  near  the  same 
place.  Not  far  off  were  two  dead  artillery  horses  in 
their  harness.  Another  had  been  attended  to  by  a 
burying-party,  who  had  thrown  some  earth  over  him  ; 
but  his  last  bed-clothes  were  too  short,  and  his  legs 
stuck  out  stark  and  stiff  from  beneath  the  gravel  cov 
erlet.  It  was  a  great  pity  that  we  had  no  intelligent 
guide  to  explain  to  us  the  position  of  that  portion  of 
the  two  armies  which  fought  over  this  ground.  There 
was  a  shallow  trench  before  we  came  to  the  cornfield, 
too  narrow  for  a  road,  as  I  should  think,  too  elevated 


42          PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

for  a  water-course,  and  which  seemed  to  have  been 
used  as  a  rifle-pit.  At  any  rate,  there  had  been  hard 
fighting  in  and  about  it.  This  and  the  cornfield  may 
serve  to  identify  the  part  of  the  ground  we  visited,  if 
any  who  fought  there  should  ever  look  over  this  paper. 
The  opposing  tides  of  battle  must  have  blended  their 
waves  at  this  point,  for  portions  of  gray  uniform  were 
mingled  with  the  "  garments  rolled  in  blood "  torn 
from  our  own  dead  and  wounded  soldiers.  I  picked 
up  a  Rebel  canteen,  and  one  of  our  own,  —  but  there 
was  something  repulsive  alx>ut  the  trodden  and  stained 
relics  of  the  stale  battle-field.  It  was  like  the  table  of 
some  hideous  orgy  left  uncleared,  and  one  turned  away 
disgusted  from  its  broken  fragments  and  muddy  heel 
taps.  A  bullet  or  two,  a  button,  a  brass  plate  from  a 
soldier's  belt,  served  well  enough  for  mementos  of  my 
visit,  with  a  letter  which  I  picked  up,  directed  to  Rich 
mond,  Virginia,  its  seal  unbroken.  "  N.  C.  Cleveland 
County.  E.  Wright  to  J.  Wright."  On  the  other 
side,  "  A  few  lines  from  W.  L.  Vaughn,"  who  has  just 
been  writing  for  the  wife  to  her  husband,  and  contin 
ues  on  his  own  account.  The  postscript,  "  tell  John 
that  nancy's  folks  are  all  well  and  has  a  verry  good 
Little  Crop  of  corn  a  growing.''  I  wonder,  if,  by  one 
of  those  strange  chances  of  which  I  have  seen  so  many, 
this  number  or  leaf  of  the  "  Atlantic  "  will  not  sooner 
or  later  find  its  way  to  Cleveland  County,  North  Caro 
lina,  and  E.  Wright,  widow  of  James  Wright,  and 
Nancy's  folks,  get  from  these  sentences  the  last  glimpse 
of  husband  and  friend  as  he  threw  up  his  arms  and 
fell  in  the  bloody  cornfield  of  Antietam  ?  I  will  keep 
this  stained  letter  for  them  until  peace  comes  back, 
if  it  comes  in  my  time,  and  my  pleasant  North  Car 
olina  Rebel  of  the  Middletown  Hospital  will,  perhaps, 


MY  HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  43 

look  these  poor  people  up,  and  tell  them  where  to  send 
for  it. 

On  the  battle-field  I  parted  with  my  two  compan 
ions,  the  Chaplain  and  the  Philanthropist.  They  were 
going  to  the  front,  the  one  to  find  his  regiment,  the 
other  to  look  for  those  who  needed  his  assistance.  We 
exchanged  cards  and  farewells,  I  mounted  the  wagon, 
the  horses'  heads  were  turned  homewards,  my  two 
companions  went  their  way,  and  I  saw  them  no  more. 
On  my  way  back,  I  fell  into  talk  with  James  Gray- 
den.  Born  in  England,  Lancashire  ;  in  this  country 
since  he  was  four  years  old.  Had  nothing  to  care  for 
but  an  old  mother ;  did  n't  know  what  he  should  do  if 
he  lost  her.  Though  so  long  in  this  country,  he  had 
all  the  simplicity  and  childlike  light-heartedness  which 
belong  to  the  Old  World's  people.  He  laughed  at  the 
smallest  pleasantry,  and  showed  his  great  white  English 
teeth ;  he  took  a  joke  without  retorting  by  an  imper 
tinence  ;  he  had  a  very  limited  curiosity  about  all  that 
was  going  on  ;  he  had  small  store  of  information  ;  he 
lived  chiefly  in  his  horses,  it  seemed  to  me.  His  quiet 
animal  nature  acted  as  a  pleasing  anodyne  to  my  re 
curring  fits  of  anxiety,  and  I  liked  his  frequent 
"  'Deed  I  don't  know,  sir,"  better  than  I  have  some 
times  relished  the  large  discourse  of  professors  and 
other  very  wise  men. 

I  have  not  much  to  say  of  the  road  which  we  were 
travelling  for  the  second  time.  Reaching  Middletowu, 
my  first  call  was  on  the  wounded  Colonel  and  his  lady. 
She  gave  me  a  most  touching  account  of  all  the  suf 
fering  he  had  gone  through  with  his  shattered  limb 
before  he  succeeded  in  finding  a  shelter ;  showing  the 
terrible  want  of  proper  means  of  transportation  of  the 
wounded  after  the  battle.  It  occurred  to  me,  while  at 


44          PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD    VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

this  house,  that  I  was  more  or  less  famished,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  I  begged  for  a  meal,  which 
the  kind  family  with  whom  the  Colonel  was  staying 
most  graciously  furnished  me. 

After  tea,  there  came  in  a  stout  army  surgeon,  a 
Highlander  by  birth,  educated  in  Edinburgh,  with 
whom  I  had  pleasant,  not  unstimulating  talk.  He 
had  been  brought  very  close  to  that  immane  and  ne- 
fandous  Burke-and-Hare  business  which  made  the 
blood  of  civilization  run  cold  in  the  year  1828,  and 
told  me,  in  a  very  calm  way,  with  an  occasional  pinch 
from  the  mull,  to  refresh  his  memory,  some  of  the 
details  of  those  frightful  murders,  never  rivalled  in 
horror  until  the  wretch  Dumollard,  who  kept  a  private 
cemetery  for  his  victims,  was  dragged  into  the  light 
of  day.  He  had  a  good  deal  to  say,  too,  about  the 
Royal  College  of  Surgeons  in  Edinburgh,  and  the 
famous  preparations,  mercurial  and  the  rest,  which  I 
remember  well  having  seen  there,  —  the  "  sudabit 
multum"  and  others,  —  also  of  our  New  York  Pro 
fessor  Carnochan's  handiwork,  a  specimen  of  which  I 
once  admired  at  the  New  York  College.  But  the 
doctor  was  not  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind,  and  seemed 
willing  to  forget  the  present  in  the  past :  things  went 
wrong,  somehow,  and  the  time  was  out  of  joint  with 
him. 

Dr.  Thompson,  kind,  cheerful,  companionable,  of 
fered  me  half  his  own  wide  bed,  in  the  house  of  Dr. 
Baer,  for  my  second  night  in  Middletown.  Here  I 
lay  awake  again  another  night.  Close  to  the  house 
stood  an  ambulance  in  which  was  a  wounded  Rebel 
officer,  attended  by  one  of  their  own  surgeons.  He 
was  calling  out  in  a  loud  voice,  all  night  long,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  "  Doctor !  Doctor  I  Driver  I  Water  1  " 


MY    HUNT   AFTER    "THE   CAPTAIN."  45 

in  loud,  complaining  tones,  I  have  no  doubt  of  real 
suffering,  but  in  strange  contrast  with  the  silent  pa 
tience  which  was  the  almost  universal  rule. 

The  courteous  Dr.  Thompson  will  let  me  tell  here 
an  odd  coincidence,  trivial,  but  having  its  interest  as 
one  of  a  series.  The  Doctor  and  myself  lay  in  the 
bed,  and  a  lieutenant,  a  friend  of  his,  slept  on  the  sofa, 
At  night,  I  placed  my  match-box,  a  Scotch  one,  of  the 
Macpherson-plaid  pattern,  which  I  bought  years  ago, 
on  the  bureau,  just  where  I  could  put  my  hand  upon 
it.  I  was  the  last  of  the  three  to  rise  in  the  morning, 
and  on  looking  for  my  pretty  match-box,  I  found  it 
was  gone.  This  was  rather  awkward,  —  not  on  ac 
count  of  the  loss,  but  of  the  unavoidable  fact  that 
one  of  my  fellow-lodgers  must  have  taken  it.  I  must 
try  to  find  out  what  it  meant. 

"  By  the  way,  Doctor,  have  you  seen  anything  of  a 
little  plaid-pattern  match-box  ?  " 

The  Doctor  put  his  hand  to  his  pocket,  and,  to  his 
own  huge  surprise  and  my  great  gratification,  pulled 
out  two  match-boxes  exactly  alike,  both  printed  with 
the  Macpherson  plaid.  One  was  his,  the  other  mine, 
which  he  had  seen  lying  round,  and  naturally  took  for 
his  own,  thrusting  it  into  his  pocket,  where  it  found 
its  twin-brother  from  the  same  workshop.  In  memory 
of  which  event,  we  exchanged  boxes,  like  two  Homeric 
heroes. 

This  curious  coincidence  illustrates  well  enough  some 
supposed  cases  of  plagiarism  of  which  I  will  mention 
one  where  my  name  figured.  When  a  little  poem 
called  "  The  Two  Streams  "  was  first  printed,  a  writer 
in  the  New  York  "  Evening  Post "  virtually  accused  the 
author  of  it  of  borrowing  the  thought  from  a  baccalau 
reate  sermon  of  President  Hopkins  of  Williamstown, 


4G  PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

and  printed  a  quotation  from  that  discourse,  which,  as 
I  thought,  a  thief  or  catchpoll  might  well  consider  as 
establishing  a  fair  presumption  that  it  was  so  bor 
rowed.  I  was  at  the  same  time  wholly  unconscious  of 
ever  having  met  with  the  discourse  or  the  sentence 
which  the  verses  were  most  like,  nor  do  I  believe  I 
ever  had  seen  or  heard  either.  Some  time  after  this, 
happening  to  meet  my  eloquent  cousin,  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  I  mentioned  the  fact  to  him,  and  he  told  me  that 
he  had  once  used  the  special  image  said  to  be  bor 
rowed,  in  a  discourse  delivered  at  Williamstown.  On 
relating  this  to  my  friend  Mr.  Buchanan  Read,  he  in 
formed  me  that  he  too,  had  used  the  image,  —  per 
haps  referring  to  his  poem  called  "  The  Twins."  He 
thought  Tennyson  had  used  it  also.  The  parting  of 
the  streams  on  the  Alps  is  poetically  elaborated  in  a 
passage  attributed  to  "  M.  Loisne,"  printed  in  the 
"  Boston  Evening  Transcript  "  for  October  23,  1859. 
Captain,  afterwards  Sir  Francis  Head,  speaks  of  the 
showers  parting  on  the  Cordilleras,  one  portion  going 
to  the  Atlantic,  one  to  the  Pacific.  I  found  the  image 
running  loose  in  my  mind,  without  a  halter.  It  sug 
gested  itself  as  an  illustration  of  the  will,  and  I 
•worked  the  poem  out  by  the  aid  of  Mitchell's  School 
Atlas.  —  The  spores  of  a  great  many  ideas  are  float 
ing  about  in  the  atmosphere.  We  no  more  know 
where  all  the  growths  of  our  mind  came  from,  than 
where  the  lichens  which  eat  the  names  off  from  the 
gravestones  borrowed  the  germs  that  gave  them  birth. 
The  two  match-boxes  were  just  alike,  but  neither  was 
a  plagiarism. 

In  the  morning  I  took  to  the  same  wagon  once 
more,  but,  instead  of  James  Grayden,  I  was  to  have 
for  my  driver  a  young  man  who  spelt  his  name  "  Phit 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN."  47 

lip  Ottenheimer,"  and  whose  features  at  once  showed 
him  to  be  an  Israelite.  I  found  him  agreeable  enough, 
and  disposed  to  talk.  So  I  asked  him  many  ques 
tions  about  his  religion,  and  got  some  answers  that 
sound  strangely  in  Christian  ears.  He  was  from  Wit 
tenberg,  and  had  been  educated  in  strict  Jewish  fash 
ion.  From  his  childhood  he  had  read  Hebrew,  but 
was  not  much  of  a  scholar  otherwise.  A  young  per 
son  of  his  race  lost  caste  utterly  by  marrying  a  Chris 
tian.  The  Founder  of  our  religion  was  considered  by 
the  Israelites  to  have  been  "  a  right  smart  man  and  a 
great  doctor."  But  the  horror  with  which  the  reading 
of  the  New  Testament  by  any  young  person  of  their 
faith  would  be  regarded  was  as  great,  I  judged  by 
his  language,  as  that  of  one  of  our  straitest  sectaries 
would  be,  if  he  found  his  son  or  daughter  perusing  the 
"  Age  of  Reason." 

In  approaching  Frederick,  the  singular  beauty  of 
its  clustered  spires  struck  me  very  much,  so  that  I  was 
not  surprised  to  find  "Fair-View"  laid  down  about 
this  point  on  a  railroad  map.  I  wish  some  wandering 
photographer  would  take  a  picture  of  the  place,  a  stere 
oscopic  one,  if  possible,  to  show  how  gracefully,  how 
charmingly,  its  group  of  steeples  nestles  among  the 
Maryland  hills.  The  town  had  a  poetical  look  from  a 
distance,  as  if  seers  and  dreamers  might  dwell  there. 
The  first  sign  I  read,  on  entering  its  long  street,  might 
perhaps  be  considered  as  confirming  my  remote  im 
pression.  It  bore  these  words:  "Miss  Ogle,  Past, 
Present,  and  Future."  On  arriving,  I  visited  Lieu 
tenant  Abbott,  and  the  attenuated  unhappy  gentleman, 
his  neighbor,  sharing  between  them  as  my  parting 
gift  what  I  had  left  of  the  balsam  known  to  the  Phar 
macopoeia  as  Spiriti's  Vini  Gallici.  I  took  ad  van- 


48          PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

tage  of  General  Shriver's  alwayj  open  door  to  write  a 
letter  home,  but  had  not  time  to  partake  of  his  offered 
hospitality.  The  railroad  bridge  over  the  Monocacy 
had  been  rebuilt  since  I  passed  through  Frederick,  and 
we  trundled  along  over  the  track  toward  Baltimore. 

It  was  a  disappointment,  on  reaching  the  Eutaw 
House,  where  I  had  ordered  all  communications  to  be 
addressed,  to  find  no  telegraphic  message  from  Phila 
delphia  or  Boston,  stating  that  Captain  H.  had  arrived 
at  the  former  place,  "  wound  doing  well  in  good  spir 
its  expects  to  leave  soon  for  Boston."  After  all,  it 
was  no  great  matter;  the  Captain  was,  no  doubt, 
snugly  lodged  before  this  in  the  house  called  Beautiful, 
at  *  *  *  *  Walnut  Street,  where  that  "grave  and 
beautiful  damsel  named  Discretion  "  had  already  wel 
comed  him,  smiling,  though  "  the  water  stood  in  her 
eyes,"  and  had  "  called  out  Prudence,  Piety,  and  Char 
ity,  who,  after  a  little  more  discourse  with  him,  had 
him  into  the  family." 

The  friends  I  had  met  at  the  Eutaw  House  had  all 
gone  but  one,  the  lady  of  an  officer  from  Boston,  who 
was  most  amiable  and  agreeable,  and  whose  benevo 
lence,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  soon  reached  the  inva 
lids  I  had  left  suffering  at  Frederick.  General  Wool 
still  walked  the  corridors,  inexpansive,  with  Fort 
McHenry  on  his  shoulders,  and  Baltimore  in  his 
breeches-pocket,  and  his  courteous  aid  again  pressed 
upon  me  his  kind  offices.  About  the  doors  of  the  ho 
tel  the  news-boys  cried  the  papers  in  plaintive,  wailing 
tones,  as  different  from  the  sharp  accents  of  their  Bos 
ton  counterparts  as  a  sigh  from  the  southwest  is  from 
a  northeastern  breeze.  To  understand  what  they  said 
was,  of  course,  impossible  to  any  but  an  educated  ear, 
and  if  I  made  out  "  Stfiarr "  and  "  Clipp'rr,"  it  waa 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  49 

because  I  knew  beforehand  what  must  be  the  burden 
of  their  advertising  coranach. 

I  set  out  for  Philadelphia  on  the  morrow,  Tuesday 
the  twenty-third,  there  beyond  question  to  meet  my 
Captain,  once  more  united  to  his  brave  wounded  com 
panions  under  that  roof  which  covers  a  household  of  as 
noble  hearts  as  ever  throbbed  with  human  sympathies. 
Back  River,  Bush  River,  Gunpowder  Creek,  —  lives 
there  the  man  with  soul  so  dead  that  his  memory  has 
cerements  to  wrap  up  these  senseless  names  in  the 
same  envelopes  with  their  meaningless  localities?  But 
the  Susquehanna,  —  the  broad,  the  beautiful,  the  his 
torical,  the  poetical  Susquehanna,  —  the  river  of  Wy 
oming  and  of  Gertrude,  dividing  the  shores  where 

"  Aye  those  sunny  mountains  half-way  down 
Would  echo  flageolet  from  some  romantic  town,"  — 

did  not  my  heart  renew  its  allegiance  to  the  poet  who 
has  made  it  lovely  to  the  imagination  as  well  as  to  the 
eye,  and  so  identified  his  fame  with  the  noble  stream 
that  it  "  rolls  mingling  with  his  fame  forever  ?  "  The 
prosaic  traveller  perhaps  remembers  it  better  from  the 
fact  that  a  great  sea-monster,  in  the  shape  of  a  steam 
boat,  takes  him,  sitting  in  the  car,  on  its  back,  and 
swims  across  with  him  like  Arion's  dolphin,  —  also 
that  mercenary  men  on  board  offer  him  canvas-backs 
in  the  season,  and  ducks  of  lower  degree  at  other 
periods. 

At  Philadelphia  again  at  last !  Drive  fast,  O  col 
ored  man  and  brother,  to  the  house  called  Beautiful, 
where  my  Captain  lies  sore  wounded,  waiting  for  the 
sound  of  the  chariot- wheels  which  bring  to  his  bedside 
the  face  and  the  voice  nearer  than  any  save  one  to  his 
heart  in  this  his  hour  of  pain  and  weakness !  Up  a 
long  street  with  white  shutters  and  white  steps  to  al] 


50          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

the  houses.  Off  at  right  angles  into  another  long 
street  with  white  shutters  and  white  steps  to  all  tho 
houses.  Off  again  at  another  right  angle  into  still  an 
other  long  street  with  white  shutters  and  white  steps 
to  all  the  houses.  The  natives  of  this  city  pretend  to 
know  one  street  from  another  by  some  individual  dif 
ferences  of  aspect ;  but  the  best  way  for  a  stranger  to 
distinguish  the  streets  he  has  been  in  from  others  is  to 
make  a  cross  or  other  mark  on  the  white  shutters. 

This  corner-house  is  the  one.  Ring  softly,  —  for  the 
Lieutenant-Colonel  lies  there  with  a  dreadfully  wounded 
arm,  and  two  sons  of  the  family,  one  wounded  like 
the  Colonel,  one  fighting  with  death  in  the  fog  of  a 
typhoid  fever,  will  start  with  fresh  pangs  at  the  least 
sound  you  can  make.  I  entered  the  house,  but  no  cheer 
ful  smile  met  me.  The  sufferers  were  each  of  them 
thought  to  be  in  a  critical  condition.  The  fourth  bed, 
waiting  its  tenant  day  after  day,  was  still  empty.  Not 
a  word  from  my  Captain. 

Then,  foolish,  fond  body  that  I  was,  my  heart  sank 
within  me.  Had  he  been  taken  ill  on  the  road,  per 
haps  been  attacked  with  those  formidable  symptoms 
which  sometimes  come  on  suddenly  after  wounds  that 
seemed  to  be  doing  well  enough,  and  was  his  life  ebb 
ing  away  in  some  lonely  cottage,  nay,  in  some  cold 
barn  or  shed,  or  at  the  wayside,  unknown,  uncared  for  ? 
Somewhere  between  Philadelphia  and  Hagerstown,  if 
not  at  the  latter  town,  he  must  be,  at  any  rate.  I  must 
sweep  the  hundred  and  eighty  miles  between  these 
places  as  one  would  sweep  a  chamber  where  a  precious 
pearl  had  been  dropped.  I  must  have  a  companion 
in  my  search,  partly  to  help  me  look  about,  and  partly 
because  I  was  getting  nervous  and  felt  lonely.  Char 
ley  said  he  would  go  with  me,  —  Charley,  my  Captain's 


MY   HUNT  AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  51 

beloved  friend,  gentle,  but  full  of  spirit  and  liveliness, 
cultivated,  social,  affectionate,  a  good  talker,  a  most 
agreeable  letter-writer,  observing,  with  large  relish  of 
life,  and  keen  sense  of  humor.  He  was  not  well 
enough  to  go,  some  of  the  timid  ones  said ;  but  he  an 
swered  by  packing  his  carpet-bag,  and  in  an  hour  or 
two  we  were  on  the  Pennsylvania  Central  Railroad  in 
full  blast  for  Harrisburg. 

I  should  have  been  a  forlorn  creature  but  for  the 
presence  of  my  companion.  In  his  delightful  company 
I  half  forgot  my  anxieties,  which,  exaggerated  as  they 
may  seem  now,  were  not  unnatural  after  what  I  had 
seen  of  the  confusion  and  distress  that  had  followed 
the  great  battle,  nay,  which  seem  almost  justified  by 
the  recent  statement  that  "  high  officers  "  were  buried 
after  that  battle  whose  names  were  never  ascertained. 
I  noticed  little  matters,  as  usual.  The  road  was  filled 
in  between  the  rails  with  cracked  stones,  such  as  are 
used  for  macadamizing  streets.  They  keep  the  dust 
down,  I  suppose,  for  I  could  not  think  of  any  other 
use  for  them.  By  and  by  the  glorious  valley  which 
stretches  along  through  Chester  and  Lancaster  Counties 
opened  upon  us.  Much  as  I  had  heard  of  the  fertile 
regions  of  Pennsylvania,  the  vast  scale  and  the  uni 
form  luxuriance  of  this  region  astonished  me.  The 
grazing  pastures  were  so  green,  the  fields  were  under 
such  perfect  culture,  the  cattle  looked  so  sleek,  the 
houses  were  so  comfortable,  the  barns  so  ample,  the 
fences  so  well  kept,  that  I  did  not  wonder,  when  I  was 
told  that  this  region  was  called  the  England  of  Penn 
sylvania.  The  people  whom  we  saw  were,  like  the 
cattle,  well  nourished  ;  the  young  women  looked  round 
and  wholesome. 

"  Grass  makes  girls"  I  said  to  my  companion,  and 


62          PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFK. 

left  him  to  work  out  my  Orphic  saying,  thinking  to 
myself,  that  as  guano  makes  grass,  it  was  a  legitimate 
conclusion  that  Ichaboe  must  be  a  nursery  of  female 
loveliness. 

As  the  train  stopped  at  the  different  stations,  I  in 
quired  at  each  if  they  had  any  wounded  officers.  None 
as  yet ;  the  red  rays  of  the  battle-field  had  not  streamed 
off  so  far  as  this.  Evening  found  us  in  the  cars ; 
they  lighted  candles  in  spring  -  candle  -  sticks  ;  odd 
enough  I  thought  it  in  the  land  of  oil-wells  and  un 
measured  floods  of  kerosene.  Some  fellows  turned  up 
the  back  of  a  seat  so  as  to  make  it  horizontal,  and  be 
gan  gambling,  or  pretending  to  gamble ;  it  looked  as 
if  they  were  trying  to  pluck  a  young  countryman  ;  but 
appearances  are  deceptive,  and  no  deeper  stake  than 
"  drinks  for  the  crowd  "  seemed  at  last  to  be  involved. 
But  remembering  that  murder  has  tried  of  late  years 
to  establish  itself  as  an  institution  in  the  cars,  I  was 
less  tolerant  of  the  doings  of  these  "  sportsmen  "  who 
tried  to  turn  our  public  conveyance  into  a  travelling 
Frascati.  They  acted  as  if  they  were  used  to  it,  and 
nobody  seemed  to  pay  much  attention  to  their  man 
oeuvres. 

We  arrived  at  Harrisburg  in  the  course  of  the  even 
ing,  and  attempted  to  find  our  way  to  the  Jones  House, 
to  which  we  had  been  commended.  By  some  mistake, 
intentional  on  the  part  of  somebody,  as  it  may  have 
been,  or  purely  accidental,  we  went  to  the  Herr  House 
instead.  I  entered  my  name  in  the  book,  with  that  of 
my  companion.  A  plain,  middle-aged  man  stepped  up, 
read  it  to  himself  in  low  tones,  and  coupled  to  it  a  lit 
erary  title  by  which  I  have  been  sometimes  known. 
He  proved  to  be  a  graduate  of  Brown  University,  and 
had  heard  a  certain  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  delivered 


MY   HUNT   AFTER    "THE   CAPTAIN."  53 

there  a  good  many  years  ago.  I  remembered  it,  too  ; 
Professor  Goddard,  whose  sudden  and  singular  death 
left  such  lasting  regret,  was  the  Orator.  I  recollect 
that  while  I  was  speaking  a  drum  went  by  the  church, 
and  how  I  was  disgusted  to  see  all  the  heads  near  the 
windows  thrust  out  of  them,  as  if  the  building  were  on 
fire.  Cedat  armis  toga.  The  clerk  in  the  office,  a 
mild,  pensive,  unassuming  young  man,  was  very  polite 
in  his  manners,  and  did  all  he  could  to  make  us  com 
fortable.  He  was  of  a  literary  turn,  and  knew  one  of 
his  guests  in  his  character  of  author.  At  tea,  a  mild 
old  gentleman,  with  white  hair  and  beard,  sat  next 
us.  He,  too,  had  come,  hunting  after  his  son,  a  lieu 
tenant  in  a  Pennsylvania  regiment.  Of  these,  father 
and  son,  more  presently. 

After  tea  we  went  to  look  up  Dr.  Wilson,  chief  med 
ical  officer  of  the  hospitals  in  the  place,  who  was  stay 
ing  at  the  Brady  House.  A  magnificent  old  toddy- 
mixer,  Bardolphian  in  hue,  and  stern  of  aspect,  as  all 
grog-dispensers  must  be,  accustomed  as  they  are  to 
dive  through  the  features  of  men  to  the  bottom  of  their 
souls  and  pockets  to  see  whether  they  are  solvent  to 
the  amount  of  sixpence,  answered  my  question  by  a 
wave  of  one  hand,  the  other  being  engaged  hi  carrying 
a  dram  to  his  lips.  His  superb  indifference  gratified 
my  artistic  feeling  more  than  it  wounded  my  personal 
sensibilities.  Anything  really  superior  in  its  line 
claims  my  homage,  and  this  man  was  the  ideal  bar 
tender,  above  all  vulgar  passions,  untouched  by  com 
monplace  sympathies,  himself  a  lover  of  the  liquid  hap 
piness  he  dispenses,  and  filled  with  a  fine  scorn  of  all 
those  lesser  felicities  conferred  by  love  or  fame  or 
wealth  or  any  of  the  roundabout  agencies  for  which 
his  fiery  elixir  is  the  cheap,  all-powerful  substitute. 


64          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

Dr.  Wilson  was  in  bed,  though  it  was  early  in  the 
evening,  not  having  slept  for  I  don't  know  how  many 
nights. 

"  Take  my  card  up  to  him,  if  you  please." 

"  This  way,  sir." 

A  man  who  has  not  slept  for  a  fortnight  or  so  is  not 
expected  to  be  as  affable,  when  attacked  in  his  bed,  as 
a  French  Princess  of  old  time  at  her  morning  recep 
tions.  Dr.  Wilson  turned  toward  me,  as  I  entered, 
without  effusion,  but  without  rudeness.  His  thick, 
dark  moustache  was  chopped  off  square  at  the  lower 
edge  of  the  upper  lip,  which  implied  a  decisive,  if  not 
a  peremptory,  style  of  character. 

I  am  Dr.  So-and-So  of  Hubtown,  looking  after  my 
wounded  son.  (I  gave  my  name  and  said  Boston,  of 
course,  in  reality.) 

Dr.  Wilson  leaned  on  his  elbow  and  looked  up  in 
my  face,  his  features  growing  cordial.  Then  he  put 
out  his  hand,  and  good-humoredly  excused  his  recep 
tion  of  me.  The  day  before,  as  he  told  me,  he  had 
dismissed  from  the  service  a  medical  man  hailing  from 
********,  Pennsylvania,  bearing  my  last  name,  pre 
ceded  by  the  same  two  initials  ;  and  he  supposed,  when 
my  card  came  up,  it  was  this  individual  who  was  dis 
turbing  his  slumbers.  The  coincidence  was  so  unlikely 
a  priori,  unless  some  forlorn  parent  without  antece 
dents  had  named  a  child  after  me,  that  I  could  not 
help  cross-questioning  the  Doctor,  who  assured  me  de 
liberately  that  the  fact  was  just  as  he  had  said,  even 
to  the  somewhat  unusual  initials.  Dr.  Wilson  very 
kindly  furnished  me  all  the  information  in  his  power, 
gave  me  directions  for  telegraphing  to  Chambersburg, 
and  showed  every  disposition  to  serve  me. 

On  returning  to  the  Herr  House,  we  found  the  mild, 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN."  55 

white-haired  old  gentleman  in  a  very  happy  state.  He 
had  just  discovered  his  son,  in  a  comfortable  condition, 
at  the  United  States  Hotel.  He  thought  that  he  could 
probably  give  us  some  information  which  would  prove 
interesting.  To  the  United  States  Hotel  we  repaired, 
then,  in  company  with  our  kind-hearted  old  friend, 
who  evidently  wanted  to  see  me  as  happy  as  himself. 
He  went  up-stairs  to  his  son's  chamber,  and  presently 
came  down  to  conduct  us  there. 

Lieutenant  P ,  of  the  Pennsylvania  th, 

was  a  very  fresh,  bright-looking  young  man,  lying  in 
bed  from  the  effects  of  a  recent  injury  received  in  ac 
tion.  A  grape-shot,  after  passing  through  a  post  and 
a  board,  had  struck  him  in  the  hip,  bruising,  but  not 
penetrating  or  breaking.  He  had  good  news  for  me. 

That  very  afternoon,  a  party  of  wounded  officers 
had  passed  through  Harrisburg,  going  East.  He  had 
conversed  in  the  bar-room  of  this  hotel  with  one  of 
them,  who  was  wounded  about  the  shoulder  (it  might 
be  the  lower  part  of  the  neck),  and  had  his  arm  in  a 
sling.  He  belonged  to  the  Twentieth  Massachusetts ; 
the  Lieutenant  saw  that  he  was  a  Captain,  by  the  two 
bars  on  his  shoulder-strap.  His  name  was  my  family- 
name  ;  he  was  tall  and  youthful,  like  my  Captain.  At 
four  o'clock  he  left  in  the  train  for  Philadelphia. 
Closely  questioned,  the  Lieutenant's  evidence  was  as 
round,  complete,  and  lucid  as  a  Japanese  sphere  of 
rock-crystal. 

TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS  !  The  Lord's  name  be  praised ! 
The  dead  pain  in  the  semilunar  ganglion  (which  I 
must  remind  my  reader  is  a  kind  of  stupid,  unreason 
ing  brain,  beneath  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  common  to 
man  and  beast,  which  aches  in  the  supreme  moments 
of  life,  as  when  the  dam  loses  her  young  ones,  or  the 


56          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

wild  horse  is  lassoed)  stopped  short.  There  was  a 
feeling  as  if  I  had  slipped  off  a  tight  boot,  or  cut  a 
strangling  garter,  —  only  it  was  all  over  my  system. 
What  more  could  I  ask  to  assure  me  of  the  Captain's 
safety  ?  As  soon  as  the  telegraph  office  opens  to-mor 
row  morning  we  will  send  a  message  to  our  friends  in 
Philadelphia,  and  get  a  reply,  doubtless,  which  will 
settle  the  whole  matter. 

The  hopeful  morrow  dawned  at  last,  and  the  mes 
sage  was  sent  accordingly.  In  due  time,  the  following 
reply  was  received :  — 

"  Phil  Sept  24  I  think  the  report  you  have  heard 
that  W  [the  Captain]  has  gone  East  must  be  an  error 
we  have  not  seen  or  heard  of  him  here  M  L  H  " 

DE  PROFUNDI8  CLAMAVI  !  He  could  not  have 
passed  through  Philadelphia  without  visiting  the  house 
called  Beautiful,  where  he  had  been  so  tenderly  cared 
for  after  his  wound  at  Ball's  Bluff,  and  where  those 
whom  he  loved  were  lying  in  grave  peril  of  life  or 
limb.  Yet  he  did  pass  through  Harrisburg,  going 
East,  going  to  Philadelphia,  on  his  way  home.  Ah, 
this  is  it !  He  must  have  taken  the  late  night-train 
from  Philadelphia  for  New  York,  in  his  impatience  to 
reach  home.  There  is  such  a  train,  not  down  in  the 
guide-book,  but  we  were  assured  of  the  fact  at  the 
Harrisburg  depot.  By  and  by  came  the  reply  from 
Dr.  Wilson's  telegraphic  message :  nothing  had  been 
heard  of  the  Captain  at  Chambersburg.  Still  later, 
another  message  came  from  our  Philadelphia  friend, 
saying  that  he  was  seen  on  Friday  last  at  the  house 

of  Mrs.  K ,  a  well-known  Union  lady  in  Hagers- 

town.  Now  this  could  not  be  true,  for  he  did  not 
leave  Keedysville  until  Saturday  ;  but  the  name  of 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  5T 

the  lady  furnished  a  clew  by  which  we  could  probably 
track  him.  A  telegram  was  at  once  sent  to  Mrs. 
K ,  asking  information.  It  was  transmitted  im 
mediately,  but  when  the  answer  would  be  received  was 
uncertain,  as  the  Government  almost  monopolized  the 
line.  I  was,  on  the  whole,  so  well  satisfied  that  the 
Captain  had  gone  East,  that,  unless  something  were 
heard  to  the  contrary,  I  proposed  following  him  in  the 
late  train  leaving  a  little  after  midnight  for  Philadel 
phia. 

This  same  morning  we  visited  several  of  the  tempo 
rary  hospitals,  churches  and  school-houses,  where  the 
wounded  were  lying.  In  one  of  these,  after  looking 
round  as  usual,  I  asked  aloud,  "  Any  Massachusetts 
men  here  ?  "  Two  bright  faces  lifted  themselves  from 
their  pillows  and  welcomed  me  by  name.  The  one 
nearest  me  was  private  John  B.  Noyes  of  Company 
B,  Massachusetts  Thirteenth,  son  of  my  old  college 
class-tutor,  now  the  reverend  and  learned  Professor  of 
Hebrew,  etc.,  in  Harvard  University.  His  neighbor 
was  Corporal  Armstrong  of  the  same  Company.  Both 
were  slightly  wounded,  doing  well.  I  learned  then 
and  since  from  Mr.  Noyes  that  they  and  their  com 
rades  were  completely  overwhelmed  by  the  attentions 
of  the  good  people  of  Harrisburg,  —  that  the  ladies 
brought  them  fruits  and  flowers,  and  smiles,  better 
than  either,  —  and  that  the  little  boys  of  the  place 
were  almost  fighting  for  the  privilege  of  doing  their 
errands.  I  am  afraid  there  will  be  a  good  many 
hearts  pierced  in  this  war  that  will  have  no  bullet- 
mark  to  show. 

There  were  some  heavy  hours  to  get  rid  of,  and  we 
thought  a  visit  to  Camp  Curtin  might  lighten  some  of 
them.  A  rickety  wagon  carried  us  to  the  camp,  iu 


58          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

company  with  a  young  woman  from  Troy,  who  had  a 
basket  of  good  things  with  her  for  a  sick  brother. 
"  Poor  boy !  he  will  be  sure  to  die,"  she  said.  The 
rustic  sentries  uncrossed  their  muskets  and  let  us  in. 
The  camp  was  on  a  fair  plain,  girdled  with  hills,  spa 
cious,  well  kept  apparently,  but  did  not  present  any 
peculiar  attraction  for  us.  The  visit  would  have  been 
a  dull  one,  had  we  not  happened  to  get  sight  of  a  sin- 
gular-looking  set  of  human  beings  in  the  distance. 
They  were  clad  in  stuff  of  different  hues,  gray  and 
brown  being  the  leading  shades,  but  both  subdued  by 
a  neutral  tint,  such  as  is  wont  to  harmonize  the  va 
riegated  apparel  of  travel-stained  vagabonds.  They 
looked  slouchy,  listless,  torpid,  —  an  ill-conditioned 
crew,  at  first  sight,  made  up  of  such  fellows  as  an  old 
woman  woidd  drive  away  from  her  hen-roost  with  a 
broomstick.  Yet  these  were  estrays  from  the  fiery 
army  which  has  given  our  generals  so  much  trouble, 
—  "  Secesh  prisoners,"  as  a  bystander  told  us.  A  talk 
with  them  might  be  profitable  and  entertaining.  But 
they  were  tabooed  to  the  common  visitor,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  get  inside  of  the  line  which  separated  us 
from  them. 

A  solid,  square  captain  was  standing  near  by,  to 
whom  we  were  referred.  Look  a  man  calmly  through 
the  very  centre  of  his  pupils  and  ask  him  for  anything 
with  a  tone  implying  entire  conviction  that  he  will 
grant  it,  and  he  will  very  commonly  consent  to  the 
thing  asked,  were  it  to  commit  hari-kari.  The  Captain 
acceded  to  my  postulate,  and  accepted  my  friend  as 
a  corollary.  As  one  string  of  my  own  ancestors  was  of 
Batavian  origin,  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  my  new 
friend  was  of  the  Dutch  type,  like  the  Amsterdam  gal« 
lots,  broad  in  the  beam,  capacious  in  the  hold,  and  cal- 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN.'*  59 

culated  to  carry  a  heavy  cargo  rather  than  to  make 
fast  time.  He  must  have  been  in  politics  at  some 
time  or  other,  for  he  made  orations  to  all  the  "  Se- 
cesh,"  in  which  he  explained  to  them  that  the  United 
States  considered  and  treated  them  like  children,  and 
enforced  upon  them  the  ridiculous  impossibility  of  the 
Rebels'  attempting  to  do  anything  against  such  a 
power  as  that  of  the  National  Government. 

Much  as  his  discourse  edified  them  and  enlightened 
me,  it  interfered  somewhat  with  my  little  plans  of  en 
tering  into  frank  and  friendly  talk  with  some  of  these 
poor  fellows,  for  whom  I  could  not  help  feeling  a  kind 
of  human  sympathy,  though  I  am  as  venomous  a  hater 
of  the  Rebellion  as  one  is  like  to  find  under  the  stars 
and  stripes.  It  is  fair  to  take  a  man^  prisoner.  It  is 
fair  to  make  speeches  to  a  man.  But  to  take  a  man 
prisoner  and  then  make  speeches  to  him  while  in  dur 
ance  is  not  fair. 

I  began  a  few  pleasant  conversations,  which  would 
have  come  to  something  but  for  the  reason  assigned. 

One  old  fellow  had  a  long  beard,  a  drooping  eyelid, 
and  a  black  clay  pipe  in  his  mouth.  He  was  a  Scotch 
man  from  Ayr,  dour  enough,  and  little  disposed  to  be 
communicative,  though  I  tried  him  with  the  "Twa 
Briggs,"  and,  like  all  Scotchmen,  he  was  a  reader  of 
"  Burrns."  He  professed  to  feel  no  interest  in  the 
cause  for  which  he  was  fighting,  and  was  in  the  army, 
I  judged,  only  from  compulsion.  There  was  a  wild- 
haired,  unsoaped  boy,  with  pretty,  foolish  features 
enough,  who  looked  as  if  he  might  be  about  seventeen, 
as  he  said  he  was.  I  give  my  questions  and  his  an 
swers  literally. 

"  What  State  do  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  Georgy." 


60          PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

"  What  part  of  Georgia?  " 

"  Midway." 

—  [How  odd  that  is !  My  father  was  settled  for 
seven  years  as  pastor  over  the  church  at  Midway, 
Georgia,  and  this  youth  is  very  probably  a  grandson 
or  great  grandson  of  one  of  his  parishioners.]  — 

"  Where  did  you  go  to  church  when  you  were  at 
home?" 

"  Never  went  inside  'f  a  church  b't  once  in  m'  life." 

"  What  did  you  do  before  you  became  a  soldier  ?  " 

"NothinV 

"  What  do  you  mean  to  do  when  you  get  back  ?  " 

"  Nothin'." 

Who  could  have  any  other  feeling  than  pity  for  this 
poor  human  weed,  this  dwarfed  and  etiolated  soul, 
doomed  by  neglect  to  an  existence  but  one  degree 
above  that  of  the  idiot  ? 

With  the  group  was  a  lieutenant,  buttoned  close  in 
his  gray  coat,  —  one  button  gone,  perhaps  to  make  a 
breastpin  for  some  fair  traitorous  bosom.  A  short, 
stocky  man,  undistinguishable  from  one  of  the  "  sub 
ject  race  "  by  any  obvious  meanderings  of  the  sangre 
azul  on  his  exposed  surfaces.  He  did  not  say  much, 
possibly  because  he  was  convinced  by  the  statements 
and  arguments  of  the  Dutch  captain.  He  had  on 
strong,  iron-heeled  shoes,  of  English  make,  which  he 
said  cost  him  seventeen  dollars  in  Richmond. 

I  put  the  question,  in  a  quiet,  friendly  way,  to  sev 
eral  of  the  prisoners,  what  they  were  fighting  for. 
One  answered,  "  For  our  homes."  Two  or  three  oth 
ers  said  they  did  not  know,  and  manifested  great  in 
difference  to  the  whole  matter,  at  which  another  of 
their  number,  a  sturdy  fellow,  took  offence,  and  mut 
tered  opinions  strongly  derogatory  to  those  who  would 


MY    HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  61 

not  stand  up  for  the  cause  they  had  been  fighting  for. 
A  feeble,  attenuated  old  man,  who  wore  the  Rebel 
uniform,  if  such  it  could  be  called,  stood  by  without 
showing  any  sign  of  intelligence.  It  was  cutting  very 
close  to  the  bone  to  carve  such  a  shred  of  humanity 
from  the  body  politic  to  make  a  soldier  of. 

We  were  just  leaving,  when  a  face  attracted  me, 
and  I  stopped  the  party.  "  That  is  the  true  Southern 
type,"  I  said  to  my  companion.  A  young  fellow,  a 
little  over  twenty,  rather  tall,  slight,  with  a  perfectly 
smooth,  boyish  cheek,  delicate,  somewhat  high  fea 
tures,  and  a  fine,  almost  feminine  mouth,  stood  at  the 
opening  of  his  tent,  and  as  we  turned  towards  him 
fidgeted  a  little  nervously  with  one  hand  at  the  loose 
canvas,  while  he  seemed  at  the  same  time  not  unwill 
ing  to  talk.  He  was  from  Mississippi,  he  said,  had 
been  at  Georgetown  College,  and  was  so  far  imbued 
with  letters  that  even  the  name  of  the  literary  humil 
ity  before  him  was  not  new  to  his  ears.  Of  course  I 
found  it  easy  to  come  into  magnetic  relation  with  him, 
and  to  ask  him  without  incivility  what  he  was  fighting 
for.  "  Because  I  like  the  excitement  of  it,"  he  an 
swered.  I  know  those  fighters  with  women's  mouths 
and  boys'  cheeks.  One  such  from  the  circle  of  my 
own  friends,  sixteen  years  old,  slipped  away  from  his 
nursery,  and  dashed  in  under  an  assumed  name  among 
the  red-legged  Zouaves,  in  whose  company  he  got  an 
ornamental  bullet-mark  in  one  of  the  earliest  conflicts 
of  the  war. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  a  genuine  Yankee  ? "  said  my 
Philadelphia  friend  to  the  young  Mississippian. 

"  I  have  shot  at  a  good  many  of  them,"  he  replied, 
modestly,  his  woman's  mouth  stirring  a  little,  with  a 
pleasant,  dangerous  smile. 


62          PAGES   FROM   AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

The  Dutch  captain  here  put  his  foot  into  the  con 
versation,  as  his  ancestors  used  to  put  theirs  into  the 
scale,  when  they  were  buying  furs  of  the  Indians  by 
weight,  —  so  much  for  the  weight  of  a  hand,  so  much 
for  the  weight  of  a  foot.  It  deranged  the  balance  of 
our  intercourse;  there  was  no  use  in  throwing  a  fly 
where  a  paving-stone  had  just  splashed  into  the  water, 
and  I  nodded  a  good-by  to  the  boy-fighter,  thinking 
how  much  pleasanter  it  was  for  my  friend  the  Captain 
to  address  him  with  unanswerable  arguments  and 
crushing  statements  in  his  own  tent  than  it  would  be 
to  meet  him  upon  some  remote  picket  station  and  offer 
his  fair  proportions  to  the  quick  eye  of  a  youngster 
who  would  draw  a  bead  on  him  before  he  had  time  to 
say  dunder  and  blixum. 

We  drove  back  to  the  town.  No  message.  After 
dinner  still  no  message.  Dr.  Cuyler,  Chief  Army 
Hospital  Inspector,  is  in  town,  they  say.  Let  us  hunt 
him  up,  —  perhaps  he  can  help  us. 

We  found  him  at  the  Jones  House.  A  gentleman 
of  large  proportions,  but  of  lively  temperament,  his 
frame  knit  in  the  North,  I  think,  but  ripened  in  Geor 
gia,  incisive,  prompt  but  good-humored,  wearing  his 
broad-brimmed,  steeple-crowned  felt  hat  with  the  least 
possible  tilt  on  one  side,  —  a  sure  sign  of  exuberant 
vitality  in  a  mature  and  dignified  person  like  him,  — 
business-like  in  his  ways,  and  not  to  be  interrupted 
while  occupied  with  another,  but  giving  himself  up 
heartily  to  the  claimant  who  held  him  for  the  time. 
He  was  so  genial,  so  cordial,  so  encouraging,  that  it 
seemed  as  if  the  clouds,  which  had  been  thick  all  the 
morning,  broke  away  as  we  came  into  his  presence,  and 
the  sunshine  of  his  large  nature  tilled  the  air  all  around 
us.  He  took  the  matter  in  hand  at  once,  as  if  it  were 


MY  HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  63 

his  own  private  affair.  In  ten  minutes  he  had  a  sec 
ond  telegraphic  message  on  its  way  to  Mrs.  K at 

Hagerstown,  sent  through  the  Government  channel 
from  the  State  Capitol,  —  one  so  direct  and  urgent 
that  I  should  be  sure  of  an  answer  to  it,  whatever  be 
came  of  the  one  I  had  sent  in  the  morning. 

While  this  was  going  on,  we  hired  a  dilapidated 
barouche,  driven  by  an  odd  young  native,  neither  boy 
nor  man,  "  as  a  codling  when  't  is  almost  an  apple," 
who  said  wery  for  very,  simple  and  sincere,  who  smiled 
faintly  at  our  pleasantries,  always  with  a  certain  re 
serve  of  suspicion,  and  a  gleam  of  the  shrewdness  that 
all  men  get  who  live  in  the  atmosphere  of  horses.  He 
drove  us  round  by  the  Capitol  grounds,  white  with 
tents,  which  were  disgraced  in  my  eyes  by  unsoldierly 
scrawls  in  huge  letters,  thus:  THE  SEVEN  BLOOMS- 
BURY  BROTHERS,  DEVIL'S  HOLE,  and  similar  inscrip 
tions.  Then  to  the  Beacon  Street  of  Harrisburg,  which 
looks  upon  the  Susquehanna  instead  of  the  Common, 
and  shows  a  long  front  of  handsome  houses  with  fair 
gardens.  The  river  is  pretty  nearly  a  mile  across  here, 
but  very  shallow  now.  The  codling  told  us  that  a 
Rebel  spy  had  been  caught  trying  its  fords  a  little 
while  ago,  and  was  now  at  Camp  Curtin  with  a  heavy 
ball  chained  to  his  leg,  —  a  popular  story,  but  a  lie, 
Dr.  Wilson  said.  A  little  farther  along  we  came  to 
the  barkless  stump  of  the  tree  to  which  Mr.  Harris,  the 
Cecrops  of  the  city  named  after  him,  was  tied  by  the 
Indians  for  some  unpleasant  operation  of  scalping  or 
roasting,  when  he  was  rescued  by  friendly  savages,  who 
paddled  across  the  stream  to  save  him.  Our  young 
ling  pointed  out  a  very  respectable-looking  stone  house 
as  having  been  "  built  by  the  Indians "  about  those 
times.  Guides  have  queer  notions  occasionally. 


64          PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

I  was  at  Niagara  just  when  Dr.  Rae  arrived  there 
with  his  companions  and  dogs  and  things  from  his 
Arctic  search  after  the  lost  navigator. 

"  Who  are  those  ?  "  I  said  to  my  conductor. 

"Them?"  he  answered.  "Them's  the  men  that's 
been  out  West,  out  to  Michig'n,  aft'  Sir  Sen  Frank 
lin." 

Of  the  other  sights  of  Harrisburg  the  Brant  House 
or  Hotel,  or  whatever  it  is  called,  seems  most  worth 
notice.  Its  facade  is  imposing,  with  a  row  of  stately 
columns,  high  above  which  a  broad  sign  impends,  like 
a  crag  over  the  brow  of  a  lofty  precipice.  The  lower 
floor  only  appeared  to  be  open  to  the  public.  Its  tes 
sellated  pavement  and  ample  courts  suggested  the  idea 
of  a  temple  where  great  multitudes  might  kneel  un- 
crowded  at  their  devotions;  but  from  appearances 
about  the  place  where  the  altar  should  be,  I  judged, 
that,  if  one  asked  the  officiating,  priest  for  the  cup 
which  cheers  and  likewise  inebriates,  his  prayer  would 
not  be  unanswered.  The  edifice  recalled  to  me  a  sim 
ilar  phenomenon  I  had  once  looked  upon,  —  the  fa 
mous  Caffd  Pedrocchi  at  Padua.  It  was  the  same 
thing  in  Italy  and  America :  a  rich  man  builds  him 
self  a  mausoleum,  and  calls  it  a  place  of  entertainment. 
The  fragrance  of  innumerable  libations  and  the  smoke 
of  incense-breathing  cigars  and  pipes  shall  ascend  day 
and  night  through  the  arches  of  his  funereal  monu 
ment.  What  are  the  poor  dips  which  flare  and  flicker 
on  the  crowns  of  spikes  that  stand  at  the  corners  of 
St.  Genevieve's  filigree-cased  sarcophagus  to  this  per 
petual  offering  of  sacrifice  ? 

Ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  was  approaching.  The 
telegraph  office  would  presently  close,  and  as  yet  there 
were  no  tidings  from  Hagerstown.  Let  us  step  over 
and  see  for  ourselves.  A  message !  A  message  I 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  65 

"  Captain  H.  still  here  leaves  seven  to-morrow  for 
Harrisburg  Penna  Is  doing  well 

Mrs  HK ." 

A  note  from  Dr.  Cuyler  to  the  same  effect  came 
soon  afterwards  to  the  hotel. 

We  shall  sleep  well  to-night ;  but  let  us  sit  awhile 
with  nubiferous,  or,  if  we  may  coin  a  word,  nephelig- 
enous  accompaniment,  such  as  shall  gently  narcotize 
the  over-wearied  brain  and  fold  its  convolutions  for 
slumber  like  the  leaves  of  a  lily  at  nightfall.  For  now 
the  over-tense  nerves  are  all  unstraining  themselves, 
and  a  buzz,  like  that  which  comes  over  one  who  stops 
after  being  long  jolted  upon  an  uneasy  pavement, 
makes  the  whole  frame  alive  with  a  luxurious  languid 
sense  of  all  its  inmost  fibres.  Our  cheerfulness  ran 
over,  and  the  mild,  pensive  clerk  was  so  magnetized 
by  it  that  he  came  and  sat  down  with  us.  He  pres 
ently  confided  to  me,  with  infinite  na'ivet£  and  ingen 
uousness,  that,  judging  from  my  personal  appearance, 
he  should  not  have  thought  me  the  writer  that  he  in 
his  generosity  reckoned  me  to  be.  His  conception,  so 
far  as  I  could  reach  it,  involved  a  huge,  uplifted  fore 
head,  embossed  with  protuberant  organs  of  the  intel 
lectual  faculties,  such  as  all  writers  are  supposed  to 
possess  in  abounding  measure.  While  I  fell  short  of 
his  ideal  in  this  respect,  he  was  pleased  to  say  that  he 
found  me  by  no  means  the  remote  and  inaccessible 
personage  he  had  imagined,  and  that  I  had  nothing  of 
the  dandy  about  me,  which  last  compliment  I  had  a 
modest  consciousness  of  most  abundantly  deserving. 

Sweet  slumbers  brought  us  to  the  morning  of  Thurs 
day.  The  train  from  Hagerstown  was  due  at  11.15 
A.  M.  We  took  another  ride  behind  the  codling,  who 


66          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

showed  us  the  sights  of  yesterday  over  again.  Being 
in  a  gracious  mood  of  mind,  I  enlarged  on  the  vary 
ing  aspects  of  the  town-pumps  and  other  striking  ob 
jects  which  we  had  once  inspected,  as  seen  by  the  dif 
ferent  lights  of  evening  and  morning.  After  this,  we 
visited  the  school-house  hospital.  A  fine  young  fellow, 
whose  arm  had  been  shattered,  was  just  falling  into  the 
spasms  of  lock-jaw.  The  beads  of  sweat  stood  large 
and  round  on  his  flushed  and  contracted  features.  He 
was  under  the  effect  of  opiates,  —  why  not  (if  his  case 
was  desperate,  as  it  seemed  to  be  considered)  stop  his 
sufferings  with  chloroform  ?  It  was  suggested  that  it 
might  shorten  life.  "  What  then  ?  "  I  said.  "  Are  a 
dozen  additional  spasms  worth  living  for?  " 

The  time  approached  for  the  train  to  arrive  from 
Hagerstown,  and  we  went  to  the  station.  I  was  struck, 
while  waiting  there,  with  what  seemed  to  me  a  great 
want  of  care  for  the  safety  of  the  people  standing 
round.  Just  after  my  companion  and  myself  had  stepped 
off  the  track,  I  noticed  a  car  coming  quietly  along 
at  a  walk,  as  one  may  say,  without  engine,  without  vis 
ible  conductor,  without  any  person  heralding  its  ap 
proach,  so  silently,  so  insidiously,  that  I  could  not  help 
thinking  how  very  near  it  came  to  flattening  out  me 
and  my  match-box  worse  than  the  Ravel  pantomimist 
and  his  snuff-box  were  flattened  out  in  the  play.  The 
train  was  late,  —  fifteen  minutes,  half  an  hour  late,  — 
and  I  began  to  get  nervous,  lest  something  had  hap 
pened.  While  I  was  looking  for  it,  out  started  a 
freight-train,  as  if  on  purpose  to  meet  the  cars  I  was 
expecting,  for  a  grand  smash-up.  I  shivered  at  the 
thought,  and  asked  an  employ^  of  the  road,  with  whom 
I  had  formed  an  acquaintance  a  few  minutes  old,  why 
there  should  not  be  a  collision  of  the  expected  train 


MY  HUNT   AFTER  THE   "CAPTAIN."  67 

with  this  which  was  just  going  out.  He  smiled  an  of 
ficial  smile,  and  answered  that  they  arranged  to  pre 
vent  that,  or  words  to  that  effect. 

Twenty-four  hours  had  not  passed  from  that  moment 
when  a  collision  did  occur,  just  out  of  the  city,  where 
I  feared  it,  by  which  at  least  eleven  persons  were 
killed,  and  from  forty  to  sixty  more  were  maimed  and 
crippled ! 

To-day  there  was  the  delay  spoken  of,  but  nothing 
worse.  The  expected  train  came  in  so  quietly  that  I 
was  almost  startled  to  see  it  on  the  track.  Let  us  walk 
calmly  through  the  cars,  and  look  around  us. 

In  the  first  car,  on  the  fourth  seat  to  the  right,  I 
saw  my  Captain ;  there  saw  I  him,  even  my  first-born, 
whom  I  had  sought  through  many  cities. 

"  How  are  you,  Boy  ?  " 

"  How  are  you,  Dad  ?  " 

Such  are  the  proprieties  of  life,  as  they  are  observed 
among  us  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
decently  disguising  those  natural  impulses  that  made 
Joseph,  the  Prime  Minister  of  Egypt,  weep  aloud  so 
that  the  Egyptians  and  the  house  of  Pharaoh  heard,  — 
nay,  which  had  once  overcome  his  shaggy  old  uncle 
Esau  so  entirely  that  he  fell  on  his  brother's  neck  and 
cried  like  a  baby  in  the  presence  of  all  the  women. 
But  the  hidden  cisterns  of  the  soul  may  be  filling  fast 
with  sweet  tears,  while  the  windows  through  which  it 
looks  are  undimmed  by  a  drop  or  a  film  of  moisture. 

These  are  times  in  which  we  cannot  live  solely  for 
selfish  joys  or  griefs.  I  had  not  let  fall  the  hand  I 
held,  when  a  sad,  calm  voice  addressed  me  by  name. 
I  fear  that  at  the  moment  I  was  too  much  absorbed  in 
my  own  feelings ;  for  certainly  at  any  other  time  I 


68          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

should  have  yielded  myself  without  stint  to  the  sym 
pathy  which  this  meeting  might  well  call  forth. 

"  You  remember  my  son,  Cortland  Saunders,  whom 
I  brought  to  see  you  once  in  Boston  ?  " 

44 1  do  remember  him  well." 

"  He  was  killed  on  Monday,  at  Shepherdstown.  I 
am  carrying  his  body  back  with  me  on  this  train.  He 
was  my  only  child.  If  you  could  come  to  my  house, 
—  I  can  hardly  call  it  my  home  now,  —  it  would  be  a 
pleasure  to  me." 

This  young  man,  belonging  in  Philadelphia,  was 
the  author  of  a  "  New  System  of  Latin  Paradigms," 
a  work  showing  extraordinary  scholarship  and  capac 
ity.  It  was  this  book  which  first  made  me  acquainted 
with  him,  and  I  kept  him  in  my  memory,  for  there 
was  genius  in  the  youth.  Some  time  afterwards  he 
came  to  me  with  a  modest  request  to  be  introduced  to 
President  Felton,  and  one  or  two  others,  who  would 
aid  him  in  a  course  of  independent  study  he  was  pro 
posing  to  himself.  I  was  most  happy  to  smooth  the 
way  for  him,  and  he  came  repeatedly  after  this  to  see 
me  and  express  his  satisfaction  in  the  opportunities 
for  study  he  enjoyed  at  Cambridge.  He  was  a  dark, 
still,  slender  person,  always  with  a  trance-like  remote 
ness,  a  mystic  dreaminess  of  manner,  such  as  I  never 
saw  in  any  other  youth.  Whether  he  heard  with  dif 
ficulty,  or  whether  his  mind  reacted  slowly  on  an  alien 
thought,  I  could  not  say  ;  but  his  answer  would  often 
be  behind  time,  and  then  a  vague,  sweet  smile,  or  a 
few  words  spoken  under  his  breath,  as  if  he  had  been 
trained  in  sick  men's  chambers.  For  such  a  young 
man,  seemingly  destined  for  the  inner  life  of  contem 
plation,  to  be  a  soldier  seemed  almost  unnatural.  Yet 
he  spoke  to  me  of  his  intention  to  offer  himself  to  his 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  69 

country,  and  his  blood  must  now  be  reckoned  among 
the  precious  sacrifices  which  will  make  her  soil  sacred 
forever.  Had  he  lived,  I  doubt  not  that  he  would 
have  redeemed  the  rare  promise  of  his  earlier  years. 
He  has  done  better,  for  he  has  died  that  unborn  gen 
erations  may  attain  the  hopes  held  out  to  our  nation 
and  to  mankind. 

So,  then,  I  had  been  within  ten  miles  of  the  place 
where  my  wounded  soldier  was  lying,  and  then  calmly 
turned  my  back  upon  him  to  come  once  more  round 
by  a  journey  of  three  or  four  hundred  miles  to  the 
same  region  I  had  left !  No  mysterious  attraction 
warned  me  that  the  heart  warm  with  the  same  blood 
as  mine  was  throbbing  so  near  my  own.  I  thought  of 
that  lovely,  tender  passage  where  Gabriel  glides  un 
consciously  by  Evangeline  upon  the  great  river.  Ah, 
me !  if  that  railroad  crash  had  been  a  few  hours  ear 
lier,  we  two  should  never  have  met  again,  after  coming 
so  close  to  each  other ! 

The  source  of  my  repeated  disappointments  was 
soon  made  clear  enough.  The  Captain  had  gone  to 
Hagerstown,  intending  to  take  the  cars  at  once  for 
Philadelphia,  as  his  three  friends  actually  did,  and  as 
I  took  it  for  granted  he  certainly  would.  But  as  he 
walked  languidly  along,  some  ladies  saw  him  across 
the  street,  and  seeing,  were  moved  with  pity,  and  pity 
ing,  spoke  such  soft  words  that  he  was  tempted  to  ac 
cept  their  invitation  and  rest  awhile  beneath  their  hos 
pitable  roof.  The  mansion  was  old,  as  the  dwellings 
of  gentlefolks  should  be;  the  ladies  were  some  of 
them  young,  and  all  were  full  of  kindness  ;  there  were 
gentle  cares,  and  unasked  luxuries,  and  pleasant  talk, 
and  music-sprinklings  from  the  piano,  with  a  sweet 
voice  to  keep  them  company,  —  and  all  this  after  the 


70          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OP   LIFE. 

swamps  of  the  Chickahominy,  the  mud  and  flies  of 
Harrison's  Landing,  the  dragging  marches,  the  des* 
perate  battles,  the  fretting  wound,  the  jolting  ambu 
lance,  the  log-house,  and  the  rickety  milk  -  cart ! 
Thanks,  uncounted  thanks  to  the  angelic  ladies  whose 
charming  attentions  detained  him  from  Saturday  to 
Thursday,  to  his  great  advantage  and  my  infinite  be 
wilderment  !  As  for  his  wound,  how  could  it  do  oth 
erwise  than  well  under  such  hands  ?  The  bullet  had 
gone  smoothly  through,  dodging  everything  but  a  few 
nervous  branches,  which  would  come  right  in  time  and 
leave  him  as  well  as  ever. 

At  ten  that  evening  we  were  in  Philadelphia,  the 
Captain  at  the  house  of  the  friends  so  often  referred 
to,  and  I  the  guest  of  Charley,  my  kind  companion. 
The  Quaker  element  gives  an  irresistible  attraction  to 
these  benignant  Philadelphia  households.  Many  things 
reminded  me  that  I  was  no  longer  in  the  land  of  the 
Pilgrims.  On  the  table  were  Kool  Slaa  and  Schmeer 
JZase,  but  the  good  grandmother  who  dispensed  with 
such  quiet,  simple  grace  these  and  more  familiar  deli 
cacies  was  literally  ignorant  of  Baked  Beans,  and 
asked  if  it  was  the  Lima  bean  which  was  employed  in 
that  marvellous  dish  of  animalized  leguminous  farina ! 

Charley  was  pleased  with  my  comparing  the  face  of 
the  small  Ethiop  known  to  his  household  as  -  Tines  " 
to  a  huckleberry  with  features.  He  also  approved  my 
parallel  between  a  certain  German  blonde  young 
maiden  whom  we  passed  in  the  street  and  the  "  Morris 
White  "  peach.  But  he  was  so  good-humored  at  times, 
that,  if  one  scratched  a  lucifer,  he  accepted  it  as  an  il 
lumination. 

A  day  in  Philadelphia  left  a  very  agreeable  impres 
sion  of  the  outside  of  that  great  city,  which  has  en- 


I  - . 
MY  HUNT   AFTER   "THE  CAPTAIN-"  71 

deared  itself  so  much  of  late  to  all  the  country  by  its 
most  noble  and  generous  care  of  our  soldiers.  Meas 
ured  by  its  sovereign  hotel,  the  Continental,  it  would 
stand  at  the  head  of  our  economic  civilization.  It  pro 
vides  for  the  comforts  and  conveniences,  and  many  of 
the  elegances  of  life,  more  satisfactorily  than  any 
American  city,  perhaps  than  any  other  city  anywhere. 
Many  of  its  characteristics  are  accounted  for  to  some 
extent  by  its  geographical  position.  It  is  the  great 
neutral  centre  of  the  Continent,  where  the  fiery  enthu 
siasms  of  the  South  and  the  keen  fanaticisms  of  the 
North  meet  at  their  outer  limits,  and  result  in  a  com 
pound  which  neither  turns  litmus  red  nor  turmeric 
brown.  It  lives  largely  on  its  traditions,  of  which, 
leaving  out  Franklin  and  Independence  Hall,  the  most 
imposing  must  be  considered  its  famous  water-works. 
In  my  younger  days  I  visited  Fairmount,  and  it  was 
with  a  pious  reverence  that  I  renewed  my  pilgrimage 
to  that  perennial  fountain.  Its  watery  ventricles  were 
throbbing  with  the  same  systole  and  diastole  as  when, 
the  blood  of  twenty  years  bounding  in  my  own  heart, 
I  looked  upon  their  giant  mechanism.  But  in  the 
place  of  "  Pratt's  Garden  "  was  an  open  park,  and  the 
old  house  where  Robert  Morris  held  his  court  in  a 
former  generation  was  changing  to  a  public  restau 
rant.  A  suspension  bridge  cobwebbed  itself  across  the 
Schuylkill  where  that  audacious  arch  used  to  leap  the 
river  at  a  single  bound,  —  an  arch  of  greater  span,  as 
they  loved  to  tell  us,  than  was  ever  before  constructed. 
The  Upper  Ferry  Bridge  was  to  the  Schuylkill  what 
the  Colossus  was  to  the  harbor  of  Rhodes.  It  had  an 
air  of  dash  about  it  which  went  far  towards  redeeming 
the  dead  level  of  respectable  average  which  flattens 
the  physiognomy  of  the  rectangular  city.  Philadel- 


72          PAGES   FROM   AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

phia  will  never  be  herself  again  until  another  Robert 
Mills  and  another  Lewis  Wernwag  have  shaped  her  a 
new  palladium.  She  must  leap  the  Schuylkill  again, 
or  old  men  will  sadly  shake  their  heads,  like  the  Jews 
at  the  sight  of  the  second  temple,  remembering  the 
glories  of  that  which  it  replaced. 

There  are  times  when  Ethiopian  minstrelsy  can 
amuse,  if  it  does  not  charm,  a  weary  soul,  and  such  a 
vacant  hour  there  was  on  this  same  Friday  evening. 
The  "  opera-house  "  was  spacious  and  admirably  ven 
tilated.  As  I  was  listening  to  the  merriment  of  the 
sooty  buffoons,  I  happened  to  cast  my  eyes  up  to  the 
ceiling,  and  through  an  open  semicircular  window  a 
bright  solitary  star  looked  me  calmly  in  the  eyes.  It 
was  a  strange  intrusion  of  the  vast  eternities  beckon 
ing  from  the  infinite  spaces.  I  called  the  attention  of 
one  of  my  neighbors  to  it,  but  "  Bones  "  was  irresisti 
bly  droll,  and  Arcturus,  or  Aldebaran,  or  whatever  the 
blazing  luminary  may  have  been,  with  all  his  revolving 
worlds,  sailed  uncared-for  down  the  firmament. 

On  Saturday  morning  we  took  up  our  line  of  march 
for  New  York.  Mr.  Felton,  President  of  the  Phila 
delphia,  Wilmington  and  Baltimore  Railroad,  had  al 
ready  called  upon  me,  with  a  benevolent  and  sagacious 
look  on  his  face  which  implied  that  he  knew  how  to  do 
me  a  service  and  meant  to  do  it.  Sure  enough,  when 
we  got  to  the  depot,  we  found  a  couch  spread  for  the 
Captain,  and  both  of  us  were  passed  on  to  New  York 
with  no  visits,  but  those  of  civility,  from  the  conduc 
tor.  The  best  thing  I  saw  on  the  route  was  a  rustic 
fence,  near  Elizabethtown,  I  think,  but  I  am  not  quite 
sure.  There  was  more  genius  in  it  than  in  any  struc 
ture  of  the  kind  I  have  ever  seen,  —  each  length  being 
of  a  special  pattern,  ramified,  reticulated,  contorted,  as 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  73 

the  limbs  of  the  trees  had  grown.  I  trust  some  friend 
will  photograph  or  stereograph  this  fence  for  me,  to 
go  witli  the  view  of  the  spires  of  Frederick,  already 
referred  to,  as  mementos  of  my  journey. 

I  had  come  to  feeling  that  I  knew  most  of  the  re 
spectably  dressed  people  whom  I  met  in  the  cars,  and 
had  been  in  contact  with  them  at  some  time  or  other. 
Three  or  four  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  near  us, 
forming  a  group  by  themselves.  Presently  one  ad 
dressed  me  by  name,  and,  on  inquiry,  I  found  him  to 
be  the  gentleman  who  was  with  me  in  the  pulpit  as 
Orator  on  the  occasion  of  another  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
poem,  one  delivered  at  New  Haven.  The  party  were 
very  courteous  and  friendly,  and  contributed  in  vari 
ous  ways  to  our  comfort. 

It  sometimes  seems  to  me  as  if  there  were  only 
about  a  thousand  people  in  the  world,  who  keep  going 
round  and  round  behind  the  scenes  and  then  before 
them,  like  the  "  army  "  in  a  beggarly  stage-show.  Sup 
pose  that  I  should  really  wish,  some  time  or  other,  to 
get  away  from  this  everlasting  circle  of  revolving  su 
pernumeraries,  where  should  I  buy  a  ticket  the  like  of 
which  was  not  in  some  of  their  pockets,  or  find  a  seat 
to  which  some  one  of  them  was  not  a  neighbor. 

A  little  less  than  a  year  before,  after  the  Ball's 
Bluff  accident,  the  Captain,  then  the  Lieutenant,  and 
myself  had  reposed  for  a  night  on  our  homeward  jour 
ney  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  where  we  were  lodged 
on  the  ground-floor,  and  fared  sumptuously.  We 
were  not  so  peculiarly  fortunate  this  time,  the  house 
being  really  very  full.  Farther  from  the  flowers  and 
nearer  to  the  stars,  —  to  reach  the  neighborhood  of 
which  last  the  per  ardua  of  three  or  four  flights  of 
stairs  was  formidable  for  any  mortal,  wounded  or  welL 


74          PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF  LIFE. 

The  "vertical  railway"  settled  that  for  us,  however. 
It  is  a  giant  corkscrew  forever  pulling  a  mammoth 
cork,  which,  by  some  divine  judgment,  is  no  sooner 
drawn  than  it  is  replaced  in  its  position.  This  as 
cending  and  descending  stopper  is  hollow,  carpeted, 
with  cushioned  seats,  and  is  watched  over  by  two  con 
demned  souls,  called  conductors,  one  of  whom  is  said 
to  be  named  Ixion,  and  the  other  Sisyphus. 

I  love  New  York,  because,  as  in  Paris,  everybody 
that  lives  in  it  feels  that  it  is  his  property,  —  at  least,  as 
much  as  it  is  anybody's.  My  Broadway,  in  particu 
lar,  I  love  almost  as  I  used  to  love  my  Boulevards.  I 
went,  therefore,  with  peculiar  interest,  on  the  day  that 
we  rested  at  our  grand  hotel,  to  visit  some  new  pleas 
ure-grounds  the  citizens  had  been  arranging  for  us, 
and  which  I  had  not  yet  seen.  The  Central  Park  is 
an  expanse  of  wild  country,  well  crumpled  so  as  to 
form  ridges  which  will  give  views  and  hollows  that 
will  hold  water.  The  hips  and  elbows  and  other  bones 
of  Nature  stick  out  here  and  there  in  the  shape  of 
rocks  which  give  character  to  the  scenery,  and  an  un 
changeable,  unpurchasable  look  to  a  landscape  that 
without  them  would  have  been  in  danger  of  being  fat 
tened  by  art  and  money  out  of  all  its  native  features. 
The  roads  were  fine,  the  sheets  of  water  beautiful,  the 
l>ridges  handsome,  the  swans  elegant  in  their  deport 
ment,  the  grass  green  and  as  short  as  a  fast  horse's 
winter  coat.  I  could  not  learn  whether  it  was  kept  so 
by  clipping  or  singeing.  I  was  delighted  with  my 
new  property,  —  but  it  cost  me  four  dollars  to  get 
there,  so  far  was  it  beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  of 
the  fashionable  quarter.  What  it  will  be  by  and  by  de 
pends  on  circumstances;  but  at  present  it  is  as  much 
central  to  New  York  as  Brookline  is  central  to  Boston. 


MT   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  75 

The  question  is  not  between  Mr.  Olmsted's  admirably 
arranged,  but  remote  pleasure-ground  and  our  Common, 
with  its  batrachian  pool,  but  between  his  Eccentric 
Park  and  our  finest  suburban  scenery,  between  its  ar 
tificial  reservoirs  and  the  broad  natural  sheet  of  Ja 
maica  Pond.  I  say  this  not  invidiously,  but  in  justice 
to  the  beauties  which  surround  our  own  metropolis. 
To  compare  the  situations  of  any  dwellings  in  either 
of  the  great  cities  with  those  which  look  upon  the 
Common,  the  Public  Garden,  the  waters  of  the  Back 
Bay,  would  be  to  take  an  unfair  advantage  of  Fifth 
Avenue  and  Walnut  Street.  St.  Botolph's  daughter 
dresses  in  plainer  clothes  than  her  more  stately  sisters, 
but  she  wears  an  emerald  on  her  right  hand  and  a 
diamond  on  her  left  that  Cybele  herself  need  not  be 
ashamed  of. 

On  Monday  morning,  the  twenty-ninth  of  Septem 
ber,  we  took  the  cars  for  home.  Vacant  lots,  with 
Irish  and  pigs  ;  vegetable-gardens  ;  straggling  houses ; 
the  high  bridge  ;  villages,  not  enchanting  ;  then  Stam 
ford  :  then  NORWALK.  Here,  on  the  sixth  of  May, 
1853, 1  passed  close  on  the  heels  of  the  great  disaster. 
But  that  my  lids  were  heavy  on  that  morning,  my 
readers  would  probably  have  had  no  further  trouble 
with  me.  Two  of  my  friends  saw  the  car  in  which  they 
rode  break  in  the  middle  and  leave  them  hanging  over 
the  abyss.  From  Norwalk  to  Boston,  that  day's  jour 
ney  of  two  hundred  miles  was  a  long  funeral  procession. 

Bridgeport,  waiting  for  Iranistan  to  rise  from  its 
ashes  with  all  its  pho3nix-egg  domes,  —  bubbles  of 
wealth  that  broke,  ready  to  be  blown  again,  iridescent 
as  ever,  which  is  pleasant,  for  the  world  likes  cheerful 
Mr.  Barnum's  success ;  New  Haven,  girt  with  flat 
marshes  that  look  like  monstrous  billiard-tables,  with 


76          PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

hay-cocks  lying  about  for  balls,  —  romantic  with  West 
Hock  and  its  legends,  —  cursed  with  a  detestable 
depot,  whose  niggardly  arrangements  crowd  the  track 
so  murderously  close  to  the  wall  that  the  peine  forte 
et  dure  must  be  the  frequent  penalty  of  an  innocent 
walk  on  its  platform,  —  with  its  neat  carriages,  metro 
politan  hotels,  precious  old  college-dormitories,  its 
vistas  of  elms  and  its  dishevelled  weeping-willows ; 
Hartford,  substantial,  well-bridged,  many  -  steepled 
city,  —  every  conical  spire  an  extinguisher  of  some 
nineteenth-century  heresy ;  so  onward,  by  and  across 
the  broad,  shallow  Connecticut,  —  dull  red  road  and 
dark  river  woven  in  like  warp  and  woof  by  the  shuttle 
of  the  darting  engine ;  then  Springfield,  the  wide- 
meadowed,  well-feeding,  horse-loving,  hot-summered, 
giant-treed  town,  —  city  among  villages,  village  among 
cities;  Worcester,  with  its  Daedalian  labyrinth  of 
crossing  railroad-bars,  where  the  snorting  Minotaurs, 
breathing  fire  and  smoke  and  hot  vapors,  are  stabled 
in  their  dens  ;  Framingham,  fair  cup-bearer,  leaf-cinc 
tured  Hebe  of  the  deep-bosomed  Queen  sitting  by  the 
sea-side  on  the  throne  of  the  Six  Nations.  And  now 
I  begin  to  know  the  road,  not  by  towns,  but  by 
single  dwellings ;  not  by  miles,  but  by  rods.  The 
poles  of  the  great  magnet  that  draws  in  all  the  iron 
tracks  through  the  grooves  of  all  the  mountains  must 
be  near  at  hand,  for  here  are  crossings,  and '  sudden 
stops,  and  screams  of  alarmed  engines  heard  all 
around.  The  tall  granite  obelisk  comes  into  view  far 
away  on  the  left,  its  bevelled  cap-stone  sharp  against 
the  sky ;  the  lofty  chimneys  of  Charlestown  and  East 
Cambridge  flaunt  their  smoky  banners  up  in  the  thin 
air ;  and  now  one  fair  bosom  of  the  three-hilled  city, 
with  its  dome-crowned  summit,  reveals  itself,  as  when 


MY   HUNT   AFTER   "THE   CAPTAIN."  77 

many-breasted  Ephesian  Artemis  appeared  with  half- 
open  chlamys  before  her  worshippers. 

Fling  open  the  window-blinds  of  the  chamber  that 
looks  out  on  the  waters  and  towards  the  western  sun  ! 
Let  the  joyous  light  shine  in  upon  the  pictures  that 
hang  upon  its  walls  and  the  shelves  thick-set  with  the 
names  of  poets  and  philosophers  and  sacred  teachers, 
in  whose  pages  our  boys  learn  that  life  is  noble  only 
when  it  is  held  cheap  by  the  side  of  honor  and  of 
duty.  Lay  him  in  his  own  bed,  and  let  Lim  sleep  off 
his  aches  and  weariness.  So  comes  down  another 
night  over  this  household,  unbroken  by  any  messenger 
of  evil  tidings,  —  a  night  of  peaceful  rest  and  grate 
ful  thoughts ;  for  this  our  son  and  brother  was  dead 
and  is  alive  again,  and  was  lost  and  is  found. 


in. 

THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL.- 

IT  is  our  first  impulse,  upon  this  returning  day  of 
our  nation's  birth,  to  recall  whatever  is  happiest  and 
noblest  in  our  past  history,  and  to  join  our  voices  in 
celebrating  the  statesmen  and  the  heroes,  the  men  of 
thought  and  the  men  of  action,  to  whom  that  history 
owes  its  existence.  In  other  years  this  pleasing  office 
may  have  been  all  that  was  required  of  the  holiday 
speaker.  But  to-day,  when  the  very  life  of  the  nation 
is  threatened,  when  clouds  are  thick  about  us,  and 
men's  hearts  are  throbbing  with  passion,  or  failing 
with  fear,  it  is  the  living  question  of  the  hour,  and  not 
the  dead  story  of  the  past,  which  forces  itself  into  all 
minds,  and  will  find  unrebuked  debate  in  all  assem 
blies. 

In  periods  of  disturbance  like  the  present,  many 
persons  who  sincerely  love  their  country  and  mean  to 
do  their  duty  to  her  disappoint  the  hopes  and  expecta 
tions  of  those  who  are  actively  working  in  her  cause. 
They  seem  to  have  lost  whatever  moral  force  they  may 
have  once  possessed,  and  to  go  drifting  about  from  one 
profitless  discontent  to  another,  at  a  time  when  every 
citizen  is  called  upon  for  cheerful,  ready  service.  It 
is  because  their  minds  are  bewildered,  and  they  are  no 
longer  truly  themselves.  Show  them  the  path  of  duty, 

•  An  Oration  delivered  before  the  City  Authorities  of  Boston, 
on  the  4th  of  July,  1863. 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL,.  79 

inspire  them  with  hope  for  the  future,  lead  them  up 
wards  from  the  turbid  stream  of  events  to  the  bright, 
translucent  springs  of  eternal  principles,  strengthen 
their  trust  in  humanity  and  their  faith  in  God,  and 
you  may  yet  restore  them  to  their  manhood  and  their 
country. 

At  all  times,  and  especially  on  this  anniversary 
of  glorious  recollections  and  kindly  enthusiasms,  we 
should  try  to  judge  the  weak  and  wavering  souls  of 
our  brothers  fairly  and  generously.  The  conditions  in 
which  our  vast  community  of  peace-loving  citizens  find 
themselves  are  new  and  unprovided  for.  Our  quiet 
burghers  and  farmers  are  in  the  position  of  river-boats 
blown  from  their  moorings  out  upon  a  vast  ocean, 
where  such  a  typhoon  is  raging  as  no  mariner  who 
sails  its  waters  ever  before  looked  upon.  If  their  be 
liefs  change  with  the  veering  of  the  blast,  if  their  trust 
in  their  fellow-men,  and  in  the  course  of  Divine  Prov 
idence,  seems  well-nigh  shipwrecked,  we  must  remem 
ber  that  they  were  taken  unawares,  and  without  the 
preparation  which  could  fit  them  to  struggle  with  these 
tempestuous  elements.  In  times  like  these  the  faith 
is  the  man  ;  and  they  to  whom  it  is  given  in  larger 
measure  owe  a  special  duty  to  those  who  for  want  of  it 
are  faint  at  heart,  uncertain  in  speech,  feeble  in  effort, 
and  purposeless  in  aim. 

Assuming  without  argument  a  few  simple  proposi 
tions,  —  that  self-government  is  the  natural  condition 
of  an  adult  society,  as  distinguished  from  the  imma 
ture  state,  in  which  the  temporary  arrangements  of 
monarchy  and  oligarchy  ai-e  tolerated  as  conveniences ; 
that  the  end  of  all  social  compacts  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
to  give  every  child  born  into  the  world  the  fairest 
chance  to  make  the  most  and  the  best  of  itself  that 


80          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

laws  can  give  it ;  that  Liberty,  the  one  of  the  two 
claimants  who  swears  that  her  babe  shall  not  be  split 
in  halves  and  divided  between  them,  is  the  true  mother 
of  this  blessed  Union;  that  the  contest  in  which  we 
are  engaged  is  one  of  principles  overlaid  by  circum 
stances  ;  that  the  longer  we  fight,  and  the  more  we 
study  the  movements  of  events  and  ideas,  the  more 
clearly  we  find  the  moral  nature  of  the  cause  at  issue 
emerging  in  the  field  and  in  the  study ;  that  all  honest 
persons  with  average  natural  sensibility,  with  respecta 
ble  understanding,  educated  in  the  school  of  northern 
teaching,  will  have  eventually  to  range  themselves  in 
the  armed  or  unarmed  host  which  fights  or  pleads  for 
freedom,  as  against  every  form  of  tyranny ;  if  not  in 
the  front  rank  now,  then  in  the  rear  rank  by  and  by ; 
—  assuming  these  propositions,  as  many,  perhaps  most 
of  us,  are  ready  to  do,  and  believing  that  the  more 
they  are  debated  before  the  public  the  more  they  will 
gain  converts,  we  owe  it  to  the  timid  and  the  doubting 
to  keep  the  great  questions  of  the  time  in  unceasing 
and  untiring  agitation.  They  must  be  discussed,  in 
all  ways  consistent  with  the  public  welfare,  by  differ 
ent  classes  of  thinkers ;  by  priests  and  laymen ;  by 
statesmen  and  simple  voters ;  by  moralists  and  law 
yers;  by  men  of  science  and  uneducated  hand-labor 
ers  ;  by  men  of  facts  and  figures,  and  by  men  of  theo 
ries  and  aspirations  ;  in  the  abstract  and  in  the 
concrete ;  discussed  and  rediscussed  every  month, 
every  week,  every  day,  and  almost  every  hour,  as  the 
telegraph  tells  us  of  some  new  upheaval  or  subsidence 
of  the  rocky  base  of  our  political  order. 

Such  discussions  may  not  be  necessary  to  strengthen 
the  convictions  of  the  great  body  of  loyal  citizens. 
They  may  do  nothing  toward  changing  the  views  of 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  81 

those,  if  such  there  be,  as  some  profess  to  believe,  who 
follow  politics  as  a  trade.  They  may  have  no  hold 
upon  that  class  of  persons  who  are  defective  in  moral 
sensibility,  just  as  other  persons  are  wanting  in  an  ear 
for  music.  But  for  the  honest,  vacillating  minds,  the 
tender  consciences  supported  by  the  tremulous  knees 
of  an  infirm  intelligence,  the  timid  compromisers  who 
are  always  trying  to  curve  the  straight  lines  and  round 
the  sharp  angles  of  eternal  law,  the  continual  debate 
of  these  living  questions  is  the  one  offered  means  of 
grace  and  hope  of  earthly  redemption.  And  thus  a 
true,  unhesitating  patriot  may  be  willing  to  listen  with 
patience  to  arguments  which  he  does  not  need,  to  ap 
peals  which  have  no  special  significance  for  him,  in 
the  hope  that  some  less  clear  in  mind  or  less  courage 
ous  in  temper  may  profit  by  them. 

As  we  look  at  the  condition  in  which  we  find  our 
selves  on  this  fourth  day  of  July,  1863,  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Eighty-eighth  Year  of  American  Indepen 
dence,  we  may  well  ask  ourselves  what  right  we  have 
to  indulge  in  public  rejoicings.  If  the  war  in  which 
we  are  engaged  is  an  accidental  one,  which  might  have 
been  avoided  but  for  our  fault ;  if  it  is  for  any  ambi 
tious  or  unworthy  purpose  on  our  part ;  if  it  is  hope 
less,  and  we  are  madly  persisting  in  it ;  if  it  is  our 
duty  and  in  our  power  to  make  a  safe  and  honorable 
peace,  and  we  refuse  to  do  it ;  if  our  free  institutions 
are  in  danger  of  becoming  subverted,  and  giving  place 
to  an  irresponsible  tyranny ;  if  we  are  moving  in  the 
narrow  circles  which  are  to  ingulf  us  in  national  ruin, 
—  then  we  had  better  sing  a  dirge,  and  leave  this  idle 
assemblage,  and  hush  the  noisy  cannon  which  are  re 
verberating  through  the  air,  and  tear  down  the  scaf- 


82          PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

folds  which  are  soon  to  blaze  with  fiery  symbols ;  for 
it  is  mourning  and  not  joy  that  should  cover  the  land ; 
there  should  be  silence,  and  not  the  echo  of  noisy  glad 
ness,  in  our  streets ;  and  the  emblems  with  which  we 
tell  our  nation's  story  and  prefigure  its  future  should 
be  traced,  not  in  fire,  but  in  ashes. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  war  is  no  accident,  but 
an  inevitable  result  of  long  incubating  causes  ;  inevi 
table  as  the  cataclysms  that  swept  away  the  monstrous 
births  of  primeval  nature ;  if  it  is  for  no  mean,  un 
worthy  end,  but  for  national  life,  for  liberty  every 
where,  for  humanity,  for  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth ;  if  it  is  not  hopeless,  but  only  growing  to  such 
dimensions  that  the  world  shall  remember  the  final 
triumph  of  right  throughout  all  time ;  if  there  is  no 
safe  and  honorable  peace  for  us  but  a  peace  proclaimed 
from  the  capital  of  every  revolted  province  in  tho 
name  of  the  sacred,  inviolable  Union ;  if  the  fear  of 
tyranny  is  a  phantasm,  conjured  up  by  the  imagina 
tion  of  the  weak,  acted  on  by  the  craft  of  the  cun 
ning  ;  if  so  far  from  circling  inward  to  the  gulf  of  our 
perdition,  the  movement  of  past  years  is  reversed,  and 
every  revolution  carries  us  farther  and  farther  from 
the  centre  of  the  vortex,  until,  by  God's  blessing,  we 
shall  soon  find  ourselves  freed  from  the  outermost  coil 
of  the  accursed  spiral  ;  if  all  these  things  are  true ; 
if  we  may  hope  to  make  them  seem  true,  or  even  prob 
able,  to  the  doubting  soul,  in  an  hour's  discourse,  — 
then  we  may  join  without  madness  in  the  day's  exult 
ant  festivities ;  the  bells  may  ring,  the  cannon  may 
roar,  the  incense  of  our  harmless  saltpetre  fill  the  air, 
and  the  children  who  are  to  inherit  the  fruit  of  these 
toiling,  agonizing  years,  go  about  unblamed,  making 
day  and  night  vocal  with  their  jubilant  patriotism. 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  83 

The  struggle  in  which  we  are  engaged  was  inevita 
ble  ;  it  might  have  coine  a  little  sooner,  or  a  little 
later,  but  it  must  have  come.  The  disease  of  the  na 
tion  was  organic,  and  not  functional,  and  the  rough 
chirurgery  of  war  was  its  only  remedy. 

In  opposition  to  this  view,  there  are  many  languid 
thinkers  who  lapse  into  a  forlorn  belief  that  if  this  or 
that  man  had  never  lived,  or  if  this  or  that  other  man 
had  not  ceased  to  live,  the  country  might  have  gone 
on  in  peace  and  prosperity,  until  its  felicity  merged  in 
the  glories  of  the  millennium.  If  Mr.  Calhoun  had 
never  proclaimed  his  heresies ;  if  Mr.  Garrison  had 
never  published  his  paper ;  if  Mr.  Phillips,  the  Cas 
sandra  in  masculine  shape  of  our  long  prosperous 
Ilium,  had  never  uttered  his  melodious  prophecies :  if 
the  silver  tones  of  Mr.  Clay  had  still  sounded  in  tho 
senate-chamber  to  smooth  the  billows  of  contention ; 
if  the  Olympian  brow  of  Daniel  Webster  had  been 
lifted  from  the  dust  to  fix  its  awful  frown  on  the 
darkening  scowl  of  rebellion,  —  we  might  have  been 
spared  this  dread  season  of  convulsion.  All  this  is 
but  simple  Martha's  faith,  without  the  reason  she 
could  have  given :  "  If  Thou  hadst  been  here,  my 
brother  had  not  died." 

They  little  know  the  tidal  movements  of  national 
thought  and  feeling,  who  believe  that  they  depend  for 
existence  on  a  few  swimmers  who  ride  their  waves. 
It  is  not  Leviathan  that  leads  the  ocean  from  continent 
to  continent,  but  the  ocean  which  bears  his  mighty 
bulk  as  it  wafts  its  own  bubbles.  If  this  is  true  of 
all  the  narrower  manifestations  of  human  progress, 
how  much  more  must  it  be  true  of  those  broad  move 
ments  in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  domain  which 
interest  all  mankind  ?  But  in  the  more  limited  ranges 


84          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF  LIFE. 

referred  to,  no  fact  is  more  familiar  than  that  there  is 
a  simultaneous  impulse  acting  on  many  individual 
minds  at  once,  so  that  genius  comes  in  clusters,  and 
shines  rarely  as  a  single  star.  You  may  trace  a  com 
mon  motive  and  force  in  the  pyramid-builders  of  the 
earliest  recorded  antiquity,  in  the  evolution  of  Greek 
architecture,  and  in  the  sudden  springing  up  of  those 
wondrous  cathedrals  of  the  twelfth  and  following  cen 
turies,  growing  out  of  the  soil  with  stem  and  bud  and 
blossom,  like  flowers  of  stone  whose  seeds  might  well 
have  been  the  flaming  aerolites  cast  over  the  battle 
ments  of  heaven.  You  may  see  the  same  law  showing 
itself  in  the  brief  periods  of  glory  which  make  the 
names  of  Pericles  and  Augustus  illustrious  with  re 
flected  splendors ;  in  the  painters,  the  sculptors,  the 
scholars  of  "  Leo's  golden  days  "  ;  in  the  authors  of 
the  Elizabethan  time  ;  in  the  poets  of  the  first  part  of 
this  century  following  that  dreary  period,  suffering 
alike  from  the  silence  of  Cowper  and  the  song  of 
Hayley.  You  may  accept  the  fact  as  natural,  that 
Zwingli  and  Luther,  without  knowing  each  other, 
preached  the  same  reformed  gospel ;  that  Newton,  and 
Hooke,  and  Halley,  and  Wren  arrived  independently 
of  each  other  at  the  great  law  of  the  diminution  of 
gravity  with  the  square  of  the  distance ;  that  Lever- 
rier  and  Adams  felt  their  hands  meeting,  as  it  were, 
as  they  stretched  them  into  the  outer  darkness  beyond 
the  orbit  of  Uranus,  in  search  of  the  dim,  unseen 
planet ;  that  Fulton  and  Bell,  that  Wheatstone  and 
Morse,  that  Daguerre  and  Niepce,  were  moving  almost 
simultaneously  in  parallel  paths  to  the  same  end. 
You  see  why  Patrick  Henry,  in  Richmond,  and  Sam 
uel  Adams,  in  Boston,  were  startling  the  crown  offi 
cials  with  the  same  accents  of  liberty,  and  why  the 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  85 

Mecklenburg  Resolutions  had  the  very  ring  of  the 
Protest  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts.  This  law 
of  simultaneous  intellectual  movement,  recognized  by 
all  thinkers,  expatiated  upon  by  Lord  Macaulay  and 
by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  among  recent  writers,  is  em 
inently  applicable  to  that  change  of  thought  and  feel 
ing  which  necessarily  led  to  the  present  conflict. 

The  antagonism  of  the  two  sections  of  the  Union 
was  not  the  work  of  this  or  that  enthusiast  or  fanatic. 
It  was  the  consequence  of  a  movement  in  mass  of  two 
different  forms  of  civilization  in  different  directions, 
and  the  men  to  whom  it  was  attributed  were  only  those 
who  represented  it  most  completely,  or  who  talked 
longest  and  loudest  about  it.  Long  before  the  accents 
of  those  famous  statesmen  referred  to  ever  resounded 
in  the  halls  of  the  Capitol,  long  before  the  "  Liberator  " 
opened  its  batteries,  the  controversy  now  working  it 
self  out  by  trial  of  battle  was  foreseen  and  predicted. 
Washington  warned  his  countrymen  of  the  danger  of 
sectional  divisions,  well  knowing  the  line  of  cleavage 
that  ran  through  the  seemingly  solid  fabric.  Jeffer 
son  foreshadowed  the  judgment  to  fall  upon  the  land 
for  its  sins  against  a  just  God.  Andrew  Jackson  an 
nounced  a  quarter  of  a  century  beforehand  that  the  next 
pretext  of  revolution  would  be  slavery.  De  Tocque- 
ville  recognized  with  that  penetrating  insight  which 
analyzed  our  institutions  and  conditions  so  keenly, 
that  the  Union  was  to  be  endangered  by  slavery,  not 
through  its  interests,  but  through  the  change  of  char 
acter  it  was  bringing  about  in  the  people  of  the  two 
sections,  the  same  fatal  change  which  George  Mason, 
more  than  half  a  century  before,  had  declared  to  be 
the  most  pernicious  effect  of  the  system,  adding  the 
solemn  warning,  now  fearfully  justifying  itself  in  the 


86          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

sight  of  his  descendants,  that  "  by  an  inevitable  chain 
of  causes  and  effects,  Providence  punishes  national 
sins  by  national  calamities."  The  Virginian  romancer 
pictured  the  far-off  scenes  of  the  conflict  which  he  saw 
approaching  as  the  prophets  of  Israel  painted  the  com 
ing  woes  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  strong  iconoclast  of 
Boston  announced  the  very  year  when  the  curtain 
should  rise  on  the  yet  unopened  drama. 

The  wise  men  of  the  past,  and  the  shrewd  men  of 
our  own  time,  who  warned  us  of  the  calamities  in  store 
for  our  nation,  never  doubted  what  was  the  cause 
which  was  to  produce  first  alienation  and  finally  rup 
ture.  The  descendants  of  the  men  "daily  exercised 
in  tyranny,"  the  "  petty  tyrants,"  as  their  own  leading 
statesmen  called  them  long  ago,  came  at  length  to  love 
the  institution  which  their  fathers  had  condemned 
while  they  tolerated.  It  is  the  fearful  realization  of 
that  vision  of  the  poet  where  the  lost  angels  snuff  up 
with  eager  nostrils  the  sulphurous  emanations  of  the 
bottomless  abyss,  —  so  have  their  natives  become 
changed  by  long  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  the  reabn 
of  darkness. 

At  last,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  the  fruits  of  sin 
ri]>ened  in  a  sudden  harvest  of  crime.  Violence 
stalked  into  the  senate-chamber,  theft  and  perjury 
wound  their  way  into  the  cabinet,  and,  finally,  openly 
organized  conspiracy,  with  force  and  arms,  made  bur 
glarious  entrance  into  a  chief  stronghold  of  the  Union. 
That  the  principle  which  underlay  these  acts  of  fraud 
and  violence  should  be  irrevocably  recorded  with  every 
needed  sanction,  it  pleased  God  to  select  a  chief  ruler 
of  the  false  government  to  be  its  Messiah  to  the  listen 
ing  world.  As  with  Pharaoh,  the  Lord  hardened  his 
heart,  while  he  opened  his  mouth,  as  of  old  he  opened 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  87 

that  of  the  unwise  animal  ridden  by  cursing  Balaam. 
Then  spake  Mr.  "  Vice-President "  Stephens  those 
memorable  words  which  fixed  forever  the  theory  of  the 
new  social  order.  He  first  lifted  a  degraded  barbarism 
to  the  dignity  of  a  philosophic  system.  He  first  pro 
claimed  the  gospel  of  eternal  tyranny  as  the  new  reve 
lation  which  Providence  had  reserved  for  the  western 
Palestine.  Hear,  O  heavens  !  and  give  ear,  O  earth  ! 
The  corner-stone  of  the  new-born  dispensation  is  the 
recognized  inequality  of  races;  not  that  the  strong 
may  protect  the  weak,  as  men  protect  women  and  chil 
dren,  but  that  the  strong  may  claim  the  authority  of 
Nature  and  of  God  to  buy,  to  sell,  to  scourge,  to  hunt, 
to  cheat  out  of  the  reward  of  his  labor,  to  keep  in 
perpetual  ignorance,  to  blast  with  hereditary  curses 
throughout  all  time,  the  bronzed  foundling  of  the  New 
World,  upon  whose  darkness  has  dawned  the  star  of 
the  occidental  Bethlehem ! 

After  two  years  of  war  have  consolidated  the  opin 
ion  of  the  Slave  States,  we  read  in  the  "  Richmond 
Examiner  " :  "  The  establishment  of  the  Confederacy 
is  verily  a  distinct  reaction  against  the  whole  course  of 
the  mistaken  civilization  of  the  age.  For  '  Liberty, 
Equality,  Fraternity,'  we  have  deliberately  substituted 
Slavery,  Subordination,  and  Government." 

A  simple  diagram,  within  the  reach  of  all,  shows 
how  idle  it  is  to  look  for  any  other  cause  than  slavery 
as  having  any  material  agency  in  dividing  the  country. 
Match  the  two  broken  pieces  of  the  Union,  and  you 
will  find  the  fissure  that  separates  them  zigzagging  it 
self  half  across  the  continent  like  an  isothermal  line, 
shooting  its  splintery  projections,  and  opening  its  re- 
entering  angles,  not  merely  according  to  the  limitations 
of  particular  States,  but  as  a  county  or  other  limited 


88         PAGES   FROM   AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

section  of  ground  belongs  to  freedom  or  to  slavery. 
Add  to  this  the  official  statement  made  in  1862,  that 
"  there  is  not  one  regiment  or  battalion,  or  even  com 
pany  of  men,  which  was  organized  in  or  derived  from 
the  Free  States  or  Territories,  anywhere,  against  the 
Union  "  ;  throw  in  gratuitously  Mr.  Stephens's  explicit 
declaration  in  the  speech  referred  to,  and  we  will  con 
sider  the  evidence  closed  for  the  present  on  this  count 
of  the  indictment. 

In  the  face  of  these  predictions,  these  declarations, 
this  line  of  fracture,  this  precise  statement,  testimony 
from  so  many  sources,  extending  through  several  gen 
erations,  as  to  the  necessary  effect  of  slavery,  a  j>nm-l, 
and  its  actual  influence  as  shown  by  the  facts,  few  will 
suppose  that  anything  we  could  have  done  would  luive 
stayed  its  course  or  prevented  it  from  working  out  its 
legitimate  effects  on  the  white  subjects  of  its  corrupt 
ing  dominion.  Northern  acquiescence  or  even  sympa 
thy  may  have  sometimes  helped  to  make  it  sit  more 
easily  on  the  consciences  of  its  supporters.  Many, 
profess  to  think  that  Northern  fanaticism,  as  they  call 
it,  acted  like  a  mordant  in  fixing  the  black  dye  of 
slavery  in  regions  which  would  but  for  that  have 
washed  themselves  free  of  its  stain  in  tears  of  peni 
tence.  It  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare  to  trust  in  any 
such  false  and  flimsy  reasons  where  there  is  enough 
and  more  than  enough  in  the  institution  itself  to  ac 
count  for  its  growth.  Slavery  gratifies  at  once  the 
love  of  power,  the  love  of  money,  and  the  love  of 
ease ;  it  finds  a  victim  for  anger  who  cannot  smite 
back  his  oppressor  ;  and  it  offers  to  all,  without  meas 
ure,  the  seductive  privileges  which  the  Mormon  gospel 
reserves  for  the  true  believers  on  earth,  and  the  Bible 
of  Mahomet  only  dares  promise  to  the  saints  in  heaven. 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  89 

Still  it  is  common,  common  even  to  vulgarism,  to 
hear  the  remark  that  the  same  gallows-tree  ought  to 
bear  as  its  fruit  the  arch-traitor  and  the  leading  cham 
pion  of  aggressive  liberty.  The  mob  of  Jerusalem 
was  not  satisfied  with  its  two  crucified  thieves  ;  it  must 
have  a  cross  also  for  the  reforming  Galilean,  who  in 
terfered  so  rudely  with  its  conservative  traditions  !  It 
is  asserted  that  the  fault  was  quite  as  much  on  our 
side  as  on  the  other  ;  that  our  agitators  and  abolishers 
kindled  the  flame  for  which  the  combustibles  were  all 
ready  on  the  other  side  of  the  border.  If  these  men 
could  have  been  silenced,  our  brothers  had  not  died. 

Who  are  the  persons  that  use  this  argument?  They 
are  the  very  ones  who  are  at  the  present  moment  most 
zealous  in  maintaining  the  right  of  free  discussion. 
At  a  time  when  every  power  the  nation  can  summon 
is  needed  to  ward  off  the  blows  aimed  at  its  life,  and 
turn  their  force  upon  its  foes,  —  when  a  false  traitor 
at  home  may  lose  us  a  battle  by  a  word,  and  a  lying 
newspaper  may  demoralize  an  army  by  its  daily  or 
weekly  stillicidium  of  poison,  they  insist  with  loud 
acclaim  upon  the  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press ; 
liberty,  nay  license,  to  deal  with  government,  with 
leaders,  with  every  measure,  however  urgent,  in  any 
terms  they  choose,  to  traduce  the  officer  before  his 
own  soldiers,  and  assail  the  only  men  who  have  any 
claim  at  all  to  rule  over  the  country,  as  the  very  ones 
who  are  least  worthy  to  be  obeyed.  If  these  opposi 
tion  members  of  society  are  to  have  their  way  now, 
they  cannot  find  fault  with  those  persons  who  spoke 
their  minds  freely  in  the  past  on  that  great  question 
which,  as  we  have  agreed,  underlies  all  our  present 
dissensions. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  bitterness  which  is  often 


90          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

shown  towards  reformers.  They  are  never  general 
favorites.  They  are  apt  to  interfere  with  vested  rights 
and  time-hallowed  interests.  They  often  wear  an  un 
lovely,  forbidding  aspect.  Their  office  corresponds  to 
that  of  Nature's  sanitary  commission  for  the  removal 
of  material  nuisances.  It  is  not  the  butterfly,  but  the 
beetle,  which  she  employs  for  this  duty.  It  is  not  the 
bird  of  paradise  and  the  nightingale,  but  the  fowl  of 
dark  plumage  and  unmelodious  voice,  to  which  is  in 
trusted  the  sacred  duty  of  eliminating  the  substances 
that  infect  the  air.  And  the  force  of  obvious  analogy 
teaches  us  not  to  expect  all  the  qualities  which  please 
the  general  taste  in  those  whose  instincts  lead  them  to 
attack  the  moral  nuisances  which  poison  the  atmos 
phere  of  society.  But  whether  they  please  us  in  all 
their  aspects  or  not,  is  not  the  question.  Like  them 
or  not,  they  must  and  will  perform  their  office,  and  we 
cannot  stop  them.  They  may  be  unwise,  violent, 
abusive,  extravagant,  impracticable,  but  they  are 
alive,  at  any  rate,  and  it  is  their  business  to  remove 
abuses  as  soon  as  they  are  dead,  and  often  to  help 
them  to  die.  To  quarrel  with  them  because  they  are 
beetles,  and  not  butterflies,  is  natural,  but  far  from 
profitable.  They  grow  none  the  less  vigorously  for 
being  trodden  upon,  like  those  tough  weeds  that  love 
to  nestle  between  the  stones  of  court-yard  pavements. 
If  you  strike  at  one  of  their  heads  with  the  bludgeon 
of  the  law,  or  of  violence,  it  flies  open  like  the  seed- 
capsule  of  a  snap-weed,  and  fills  the  whole  region  with 
seminal  thoughts  which  will  spring  up  in  a  crop  just 
like  the  original  martyr.  They  chased  one  of  these  en 
thusiasts,  who  attacked  slavery,  from  St.  Louis,  and 
shot  him  at  Alton  in  1837  ;  and  on  the  23d  of  June 
just  passed,  the  Governor  of  Missouri,  chairman  of  the 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  91 

Committee  on  Emancipation,  introduced  to  the  Con 
vention  an  Ordinance  for  the  final  extinction  of  slav 
ery  !  They  hunted  another  through  the  streets  of  a 
great  Northern  city  in  1835  ;  and  within  a  few  weeks 
a  regiment  of  colored  soldiers,  many  of  them  bearing 
the  marks  of  the  slave-driver's  whip  on  their  backs, 
marched  out  before  a  vast  multitude  tremulous  with 
newly-stirred  sympathies,  through  the  streets  of  the 
same  city,  to  fight  our  battles  in  the  name  of  God  and 
Liberty  ! 

The  same  persons  who  abuse  the  reformers,  and  lay 
all  our  troubles  at  their  door,  are  apt  to  be  severe  also 
on  what  they  contemptuously  emphasize  as  *'  sentiments  " 
considered  as  motives  of  action.  It  is  charitable  to 
believe  that  they  do  not  seriously  contemplate  or  truly 
understand  the  meaning  of  the  words  they  use,  but 
rather  play  with  them,  as  certain  so-called  "  learned  " 
quadrupeds  play  with  the  printed  characters  set  before 
them.  In  all  questions  involving  duty,  we  act  from 
sentiments.  Religion  springs  from  them,  the  family 
order  rests  upon  them,  and  in  every  community  each 
act  involving  a  relation  between  any  two  of  its  mem 
bers  implies  the  recognition  or  the  denial  of  a  senti 
ment.  It  is  true  that  men  often  forget  them  or  act 
against  their  bidding  in  the  keen  competition  of  busi 
ness  and  politics.  But  God  has  not  left  the  hard  in 
tellect  of  man  to  work  out  its  devices  without  the  con 
stant  presence  of  beings  with  gentler  and  purer  instincts. 
The  breast  of  woman  is  the  ever-rocking  cradle  of  the 
pure  and  holy  sentiments  which  will  sooner  or  later 
steal  their  way  into  the  mind  of  her  sterner  companion  ; 
which  will  by  and  by  emerge  in  the  thoughts  of  the 
world's  teachers,  and  at  last  thunder  forth  in  the  edicts 
of  its  law-givers  and  masters.  Woman  herself  bor- 


92          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

rows  half  her  tenderness  from  the  sweet  influences  of 
maternity ;  and  childhood,  that  weeps  at  the  story  of 
suffering,  that  shudders  at  the  picture  of  wrong,  brings 
down  its  inspiration  "  from  God,  who  is  our  home." 
To  quarrel,  then,  with  the  class  of  minds  that  instinct 
ively  attack  abuses,  is  not  only  profitless  but  senseless ; 
to  sneer  at  the  sentiments  which  are  the  springs  of  all 
just  and  virtuous  actions,  is  merely  a  display  of  un 
thinking  levity,  or  of  want  of  the  natural  sensibilities. 

With  the  hereditary  character  of  the  Southern  peo 
ple  moving  in  one  direction,  and  the  awakened  con 
science  of  the  North  stirring  in  the  other,  the  open 
conflict  of  opinion  was  inevitable,  and  equally  inevitable 
its  appearance  in  the  field  of  national  politics.  For 
what  is  meant  by  self-government  is,  that  a  man  shall 
make  his  convictions  of  what  is  right  and  expedient 
regulate  the  community  so  far  as  his  fractional  share 
of  the  government  extends.  If  one  has  come  to  the 
conclusion,  be  it  right  or  wrong,  that  any  particular  in 
stitution  or  statute  is  a  violation  of  the  sovereign  law 
of  God,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  he  will  choose  to  be 
represented  by  those  who  share  his  belief,  and  who  will 
in  their  wider  sphere  do  all  they  legitimately  can  to 
get  rid  of  the  wrong  in  which  they  find  themselves  and 
their  constituents  involved.  To  prevent  opinion  from 
organizing  itself  under  political  forms  may  be  very  de 
sirable,  but  it  is  not  according  to  the  theory  or  practice 
of  self-government.  And  if  at  last  organized  opinions 
become  arrayed  in  hostile  shape  against  each  other,  we 
shall  find  that  a  just  war  is  only  the  last  inevitable  link 
in  a  chain  of  closely  connected  impulses  of  which  the 
original  source  is  in  Him  who  gave  to  tender  and  hum 
ble  and  uncorrupted  souls  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  which,  after  passing  through  various  forms,  has 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  93 

found  its  final  expression  in  the  use  of  material  force. 
Behind  the  bayonet  is  the  law-giver's  statute,  behind 
the  statute  the  thinker's  argument,  behind  the  argu 
ment  is  the  tender  conscientiousness  of  woman,  — 
woman,  the  wife,  the  mother,  —  who  looks  upon  the 
face  of  God  himself  reflected  in  the  unsullied  soul  of 
infancy.  "  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings 
hast  thou  ordained  strength,  because  of  thine  ene 
mies." 

The  simplest  course  for  the  malecontent  is  to  find 
fault  with  the  order  of  Nature  and  the  Being  who  es 
tablished  it.  Unless  the  law  of  moral  progress  were 
changed,  or  the  Governor  of  the  Universe  were  de 
throned,  it  would  be  impossible  to  prevent  a  great  up 
rising  of  the  human  conscience  against  a  system,  the 
legislation  relating  to  which,  in  the  words  of  so  calm 
an  observer  as  De  Tocqueville,  the  Montesquieu  of  our 
laws,  presents  "  such  unparalleled  atrocities  as  to  show 
that  the  laws  of  humanity  have  been  totally  perverted." 
Until  the  infinite  selfishness  of  the  powers  that  hate 
and  fear  the  principles  of  free  government  swallowed 
up  their  convenient  virtues,  that  system  was  hissed  at 
by  all  the  old-world  civilization.  While  in  one  section 
of  our  land  the  attempt  has  been  going  on  to  lift  it 
out  of  the  category  of  tolerated  wrongs  into  the  sphere 
of  the  world's  beneficent  agencies,  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  the  protest  of  Northern  manhood  and  womanhood 
would  grow  louder  and  stronger  until  the  conflict  of 
principles  led  to  the  conflict  of  forces.  The  moral  up 
rising  of  the  North  came  with  the  logical  precision  of 
destiny;  the  rage  of  the  "petty  tyrants"  was  inevi 
table  ;  the  plot  to  erect  a  slave  empire  followed  with 
fated  certainty ;  and  the  only  question  left  for  us  of 
the  North  was,  whether  we  should  suffer  the  cause  of 


94          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

the  Nation  to  go  by  default,  or  maintain  its  existence 
by  the  argument  of  cannon  and  musket,  of  bayonet 
and  sabre. 

The  war  in  which  we  are  engaged  is  for  no  meanly 
ambitious  or  unworthy  purpose.  It  was  primarily, 
and  is  to  this  moment,  for  the  preservation  of  our 
national  existence.  The  first  direct  movement  towards 
it  was  a  civil  request  on  the  part  of  certain  Southern 
persons,  that  the  Nation  would  commit  suicide,  without 
making  any  unnecessary  trouble  about  it.  It  was  an 
swered,  with  sentiments  of  the  highest  consideration, 
that  there  were  constitutional  and  other  objections 
to  the  Nation's  laying  violent  hands  upon  itself.  It 
was  then  requested,  in  a  somewhat  peremptory  tone, 
that  the  Nation  would  be  so  obliging  as  to  abstain  from 
food  until  the  natural  consequences  of  that  proceeding 
should  manifest  themselves.  All  this  was  done  as  be 
tween  a  single  State  and  an  isolated  fortress ;  but  it 
was  not  South  Carolina  and  Fort  Sumter  that  were 
talking ;  it  was  a  vast  conspiracy  uttering  its  menace 
to  a  mighty  nation ;  the  whole  menagerie  of  treason 
was  pacing  its  cages,  ready  to  spring  as  soon  as  the 
doors  were  opened ;  and  all  that  the  tigers  of  rebellion 
wanted  to  kindle  their  wild  natures  to  frenzy,  was  the 
sight  of  flowing  blood. 

As  if  to  show  how  coldly  and  calmly  all  this  had 
been  calculated  beforehand  by  the  conspirators,  to 
make  sure  that  no  absence  of  malice  aforethought 
should  degrade  the  grand  malignity  of  settled  purpose 
into  the  trivial  effervescence  of  transient  passion,  the 
torch  which  was  literally  to  launch  the  first  mi>-ilr, 
figuratively,  to  "  fire  the  southern  heart "  and  light 
the  flame  of  civil  war,  was  given  into  the  trembling 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  95 

hand  of  an  old  white-headed  man,  the  wretched  incen 
diary  whom  history  will  handcuff  in  eternal  infamy 
with  the  temple-burner  of  ancient  Ephesus.  The  first 
gun  that  spat  its  iron  insult  at  Fort  Sumter,  smote 
every  loyal  American  full  in  the  face.  As  when  the 
foul  witch  used  to  torture  her  miniature  image,  the 
person  it  represented  suffered  all  that  she  inflicted  on 
his  waxen  counterpart,  so  every  buffet  that  fell  on  the 
smoking  fortress  was  felt  by  the  sovereign  nation  of 
which  that  was  the  representative.  Robbery  could  go 
no  farther,  for  every  loyal  man  of  the  North  was  de 
spoiled  in  that  single  act  as  much  as  if  a  footpad  had 
laid  hands  upon  him  to  take  from  him  his  father's 
staff  and  his  mother's  Bible.  Insult  could  go  no  far 
ther,  for  over  those  battered  walls  waved  the  precious 
symbol  of  all  we  most  value  in  the  past  and  most  hope 
for  in  the  future,  —  the  banner  under  which  we  became 
a  nation,  and  which,  next  to  the  cross  of  the  Redeemer, 
is  the  dearest  object  of  love  and  honor  to  all  who  toil 
or  march  or  sail  beneath  its  waving  folds  of  glory. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  what  might 
have  been  the  course  of  events  if  under  the  influence 
of  fear,  or  of  what  some  would  name  humanity,  or  of 
conscientious  scruples  to  enter  upon  what  a  few  please 
themselves  and  their  rebel  friends  by  calling  a  "  wicked 
war " ;  if  under  any  or  all  these  influences  we  had 
taken  the  insult  and  the  violence  of  South  Carolina 
without  accepting  it  as  the  first  blow  of  a  mortal  com 
bat,  in  which  we  must  either  die  or  give  the  last  and 
finishing  stroke. 

By  the  same  title  which  South  Carolina  asserted  to 
Fort  Sumter,  Florida  would  have  challenged  as  her 
own  the  Gibraltar  of  the  Gulf,  and  Virginia  the  Eh- 
renbreitstein  of  the  Chesapeake.  Half  our  navy  would 


96          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

have  anchored  under  the  guns  of  these  suddenly  alien- 
ated  fortresses,  with  the  flag  of  the  rebellion  flying  at 
their  peaks.  "  Old  Ironsides "  herself  would  have 
perhaps  sailed  out  of  Annapolis  harbor  to  have  a 
wooden  Jefferson  Davis  shaped  for  her  figure-head  at 
Norfolk,  —  for  Andrew  Jackson  was  a  hater  of  seces 
sion,  and  his  was  no  fitting  effigy  for  the  battle-ship  of 
the  red-handed  conspiracy.  With  all  the  great  for 
tresses,  with  half  the  ships  and  warlike  material,  in 
addition  to  all  that  was  already  stolen,  in  the  traitors' 
hands,  what  chance  would  the  loyal  men  in  the  Border 
States  have  stood  against  the  rush  of  the  desperate  fa 
natics  of  the  now  triumphant  faction  ?  Where  wotdd 
Maryland,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  Tennessee,  —  saved,  or 
looking  to  be  saved,  even  as  it  is,  as  by  fire,  —  have 
been  in  the  day  of  trial  ?  Into  whose  hands  would  the 
Capital,  the  archives,  the  glory,  the  name,  the  very  life 
of  the  nation  as  a  nation,  have  fallen,  endangered  as 
all  of  them  were,  in  spite  of  the  volcanic  outburst  of 
the  startled  North  which  answered  the  roar  of  the  first 
gun  at  Sumter?  Worse  than  all,  are  we  permitted  to 
doubt  that  in  the  very  bosom  of  the  North  itself  there 
was  a  serpent,  coiled  but  not  sleeping,  which  only  lis 
tened  for  the  first  word  that  made  it  safe  to  strike,  to 
bury  its  fangs  in  the  heart  of  Freedom,  and  blend  its 
golden  scales  in  close  embrace  with  the  deadly  reptile 
of  the  cotton-fields.  Who  would  not  wish  that  he 
were  wrong  in  such  a  suspicion  ?  yet  who  can  forget 
the  mysterious  warnings  that  the  allies  of  the  rebels 
were  to  be  found  far  north  of  the  fatal  boundary  line ; 
and  that  it  was  in  their  own  streets,  against  their  own 
brothers,  that  the  champions  of  liberty  were  to  defend 
her  sacred  heritage  ? 

Not  to  have  fought,  then,  after  the  supreme  indig- 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  97 

nity  and  outrage  we  had  suffered,  would  have  been  to 
provoke  every  further  wrong,  and  to  furnish  the  means 
for  its  commission.  It  would  have  been  to  placard 
ourselves  on  the  walls  of  the  shattered  fort,  as  the 
spiritless  race  the  proud  labor-thieves  called  us.  It 
would  have  been  to  die  as  a  nation  of  freemen,  and  to 
have  given  all  we  had  left  of  our  rights  into  the  hands 
of  alien  tyrants  in  league  with  home-bred  traitors. 

Not  to  have  fought  would  have  been  to  be  false  to 
liberty  everywhere,  and  to  humanity.  You  have  only 
to  see  who  are  our  friends  and  who  are  our  enemies 
in  this  struggle,  to  decide  for  what  principles  we  are 
combating.  We  know  too  well  that  the  British  aris 
tocracy  is  not  with  us.  We  know  what  the  West  End 
of  London  wishes  may  be  result  of  this  controversy. 
The  two  halves  of  this  Union  are  the  two  blades  of  the 
shears,  threatening  as  those  of  Atropos  herself,  which 
will  sooner  or  later  cut  into  shreds  the  old  charters  of 
tyranny.  How  they  would  exult  if  they  could  but 
break  the  rivet  that  makes  of  the  two  blades  one  re 
sistless  weapon  !  The  man  who  of  all  living  Ameri 
cans  had  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  how  the  fact 
stood,  wrote  these  words  in  March,  1862 :  "  That 
Great  Britain  did,  in  the  most  terrible  moment  of  our 
domestic  trial  in  struggling  with  a  monstrous  social 
evil  she  had  earnestly  professed  to  abhor,  coldly  and 
at  once  assume  our  inability  to  master  it,  and  then  be 
come  the  only  foreign  nation  steadily  contributing  in 
every  indirect  way  possible  to  verify  its  pre-judgment, 
will  probably  be  the  verdict  made  up  against  her  by 
posterity,  on  a  calm  comparison  of  the  evidence." 

So  speaks  the  wise,  tranquil  statesman  who  repre 
sents  the  nation  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  in  the 
midst  of  embarrassments  perhaps  not  less  than  those 


98          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

which  vexed  his  illustrious  grandiather,  when  he  occu 
pied  the  same  position  as  the  Envoy  of  the  hated,  new 
born  Republic. 

"  It  cannot  be  denied,"  —  says  another  observer, 
placed  on  one  of  our  national  watch-towers  in  a  for 
eign  capital,  — "  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  tendency 
of  European  public  opinion,  as  delivered  from  high 
places,  is  more  and  more  unfriendly  to  our  cause  "  ;  — 
"but  the  people,"  he  adds,  "everywhere  sympathize 
with  us,  for  they  know  that  our  cause  is  that  of  free 
institutions,  —  that  our  struggle  is  that  of  the  people 
against  an  oligarchy."  These  are  the  words  of  the 
Minister  to  Austria,  whose  generous  sympathies  with 
popular  liberty  no  homage  paid  to  his  genius  by  the 
class  whose  admiring  welcome  is  most  seductive  to 
scholars  has  ever  spoiled  ;  our  fellow-citizen,  the  histo 
rian  of  a  great  Republic  which  infused  a  portion  of  its 
life  into  our  own,  —  John  Lothrop  Motley. 

It  is  a  bitter  commentary  on  the  effects  of  Euro 
pean,  and  especially  of  British  institutions,  that  such 
men  should  have  to  speak  in  such  terms  of  the  man 
ner  in  which  our  struggle  has  been  regarded.  We 
had,  no  doubt,  very  generally  reckoned  on  the  sympa 
thy  of  England,  at  least,  in  a  strife  which,  whatever 
pretexts  were  alleged  as  its  cause,  arrayed  upon  one 
side  the  supporters  of  an  institution  she  was  supposed 
to  hate  in  earnest,  and  on  the  other  its  assailants.  We 
had  forgotten  what  her  own  poet,  one  of  the  truest  and 
purest  of  her  children,  had  said  of  his  countrymen,  in 
words  which  might  well  have  been  spoken  by  the  Brit 
ish  Premier  to  the  American  Ambassador  asking  for 
some  evidence  of  kind  feeling  on  the  part  of  his  gov 
ernment  :  — 


THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  99 

"  Alas  !  expect  it  not.     We  found  no  bait 
To  tempt  us  in  thy  country.     Doing  good, 
Disinterested  good,  is  not  our  trade." 

We  know  full  well  by  this  time  what  truth  there  is 
in  these  honest  lines.  We  have  found  out,  too,  who 
our  European  enemies  are,  and  why  they  are  our  ene 
mies.  Three  bending  statues  bear  up  that  gilded  seat, 
which,  in  spite  of  the  time-hallowed  usurpations  and 
consecrated  wrongs  so  long  associated  with  its  history, 
is  still  venerated  as  the  throne.  One  of  these  supports 
is  the  pensioned  church  ;  the  second  is  the  purchased 
army ;  the  third  is  the  long-suffering  people.  When 
ever  the  third  caryatid  comes  to  life  and  walks  from 
beneath  its  burden,  the  capitals  of  Europe  will  be  filled 
with  the  broken  furniture  of  palaces.  No  wonder 
that  our  ministers  find  the  privileged  orders  willing  to 
see  the  ominous  republic  split  into  two  antagonistic 
forces,  each  paralyzing  the  other,  and  standing  in  their 
mighty  impotence  a  spectacle  to  courts  and  kings ;  to 
be  pointed  at  as  helots  who  drank  themselves  blind 
and  giddy  out  of  that  broken  chalice  which  held  the 
poisonous  draught  of  liberty ! 

We  know  our  enemies,  and  they  are  the  enemies  of 
popular  rights.  We  know  our  friends,  and  they  are  the 
foremost  champions  of  political  and  social  progress. 
The  eloquent  voice  and  the  busy  pen  of  John  Bright 
have  both  been  ours,  heartily,  nobly,  from  the  first ; 
the  man  of  the  people  has  been  true  to  the  cause  of  the 
people.  That  deep  and  generous  thinker,  who,  more 
than  any  of  her  philosophical  writers,  represents  the 
higher  thought  of  England,  John  Stuart  Mill,  has 
spoken  for  us  in  tones  to  which  none  but  her  sordid 
hucksters  and  her  selfish  land-graspers  can  refuse  to 
listen.  Count  Gasparin  and  Laboulaye  have  sent  us 


100      PAGES    FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

back  the  echo  from  liberal  France ;  France,  the  coun 
try  of  ideas,  whose  earlier  inspirations  embodied  them 
selves  for  us  in  the  person  of  the  youthful  Lafayette. 
Italy,  —  would  you  know  on  which  side  the  rights  of 
the  people  and  the  hopes  of  the  future  are  to  be  found 
in  this  momentous  conflict,  what  surer  test,  what  am 
pler  demonstration  can  you  ask  than  the  eager  sym 
pathy  of  the  Italian  patriot  whose  name  is  the  hope  of 
the  toiling  many,  and  the  dread  of  their  oppressors, 
wherever  it  is  spoken,  the  heroic  Garibaldi  ? 

But  even  whon  it  is  granted  that  the  war  was  inev 
itable  ;  when  it  is  granted  that  it  is  for  no  base  end, 
but  first  for  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  more  and  more, 
as  the  quarrel  deepens,  for  the  welfare  of  mankind, 
for  knowledge  as  against  enforced  ignorance,  for  jus 
tice  as  against  oppression,  for  that  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth  which  neither  the  unrighteous  man  nor  the  ex 
tortioner  can  hope  to  inherit,  it  may  still  be  that  the 
strife  is  hopeless,  and  must  therefore  be  abandoned. 
Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  whether  the  war  is  hopeless 
or  not  for  the  North  depends  chiefly  on  the  answer  to 
the  question,  whether  the  North  has  virtue  and  man 
hood  enough  to  persevere  in  the  contest  so  long  as  its 
resources  hold  out  ?  But  how  much  virtue  and  man 
hood  it  has  can  never  be  told  until  they  are  tried,  and 
those  who  are  first  to  doubt  the  prevailing  existence  of 
these  qualities  are  not  commonly  themselves  patterns 
of  either.  We  have  a  right  to  trust  that  this  people 
is  virtuous  and  brave  enough  not  to  give  up  a  just  and 
necessary  contest  before  its  end  is  attained,  or  shown 
to  be  unattainable  for  want  of  material  agencies.  What 
was  the  end  to  be  attained  l»y  accepting  the  gage  of 
battle  ?  It  was  to  get  the  better  of  our  assailants,  and, 


THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  101 

having  done  so,  to  take  exactly  those  steps  which  we 
should  then  consider  necessary  to  our  present  and 
future  safety.  The  more  obstinate  the  resistance,  the 
more  completely  must  it  be  subdued.  It  may  not 
even  have  been  desirable,  as  Mr.  Mill  suggested  long 
since,  that  the  victory  over  the  rebellion  should  have 
been  easily  and  speedily  won,  and  so  have  failed  to  de 
velop  the  true  meaning  of  the  conflict,  to  bring  out  the 
full  strength  of  the  revolted  section,  and  to  exhaust  the 
means  which  would  have  served  it  for  a  still  more  des 
perate  future  effort.  We  cannot  complain  that  our 
task  has  proved  too  easy.  We  give  our  Southern 
army,  —  for  we  must  remember  that  it  is  our  army, 
after  all,  only  in  a  state  of  mutiny,  —  we  give  our 
Southern  army  credit  for  excellent  spirit  and  perse 
verance  in  the  face  of  many  disadvantages.  But  we 
have  a  few  plain  facts  which  show  the  probable  course 
of  events ;  the  gradual  but  sure  operation  of  the  block 
ade  ;  the  steady  pushing  back  of  the  boundary  of  rebel 
lion,  in  spite  of  resistance  at  many  points,  or  even  of 
such  aggressive  inroads  as  that  which  our  armies  are 
now  meeting  with  their  long  lines  of  bayonets,  —  may 
God  grant  them  victory !  —  the  progress  of  our  arms 
down  the  Mississippi ;  the  relative  value  of  gold  and 
currency  at  Richmond  and  Washington.  If  the  index- 
hands  of  force  and  credit  continue  to  move  in  the  ratio 
of  the  past  two  years,  where  will  the  Confederacy  be 
in  twice  or  thrice  that  time? 

Either  all  our  statements  of  the  relative  numbers, 
power,  and  wealth  of  the  two  sections  of  the  country 
signify  nothing,  or  the  resources  of  our  opponents  in 
men  and  means  must  be  much  nearer  exhaustion  than 
our  own.  The  running  sand  of  the  hour-glass  gives 
no  warning,  but  runs  as  freely  as  ever  when  its  last 


102       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

grains  are  about  to  fall.  The  merchant  wears  as  bold 
a  face  the  day  before  he  is  proclaimed  a  bankrupt,  as 
he  wore  at  the  height  of  his  fortunes.  If  Colonel 
Grierson  found  the  Confederacy  "  a  mere  shell,"  so  far 
as  his  equestrian  excursion  carried  him,  how  can  we 
say  how  soon  the  shell  will  collapse  ?  It  seems  impos 
sible  that  our  own  dissensions  can  produce  anything 
more  than  local  disturbances,  like  the  Morristown  re 
volt,  which  Washington  put  down  at  once  by  the  aid 
of  his  faithful  Massachusetts  soldiers.  But  in  a  rebel 
lious  state  dissension  is  ruin,  and  the  violence  of  an 
explosion  in  a  strict  ratio  to  the  pressure  on  every  inch 
of  the  containing  surface.  Now  we  know  the  tremen 
dous  force  which  has  compelled  the  "  unanimity "  of 
the  Southern  people.  There  are  men  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Southern  army,  if  we  can  trust  the  evidence  which 
reaches  us,  who  have  been  recruited  with  packs  of 
blood-hounds,  and  drilled,  as  it  were,  with  halters 
around  their  necks.  We  know  what  is  the  bitterness 
of  those  who  have  escaped  this  bloody  harvest  of  the 
remorseless  conspirators  ;  and  from  that  we  can  judge 
of  the  elements  of  destruction  incorporated  with  many 
of  the  seemingly  solid  portions  of  the  fabric  of  the  re 
bellion.  The  facts  are  necessarily  few,  but  we  can 
reason  from  the  laws  of  human  nature  as  to  what  must 
be  the  feelings  of  the  people  of  the  South  to  their 
Northern  neighbors.  It  is  impossible  that  the  love  of 
the  life  which  they  have  had  in  common,  their  glorious 
recollections,  their  blended  histories,  their  sympathies 
as  Americans,  their  mingled  blood,  their  birthright  as 
born  under  the  same  flag  and  protected  by  it  the  world 
over,  their  worship  of  the  same  God,  under  the  same 
outward  form,  at  least,  and  in  the  folds  of  the  samo 
ecclesiastical  organizations,  should  all  be  forgotten, 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  103 

and  leave  nothing  but  hatred  and  eternal  alienation. 
Men  do  not  change  in  this  way,  and  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  the  pretended  unanimity  of  the  South 
will  some  day  or  other  prove  to  have  been  a  part  of 
the  machinery  of  deception  which  the  plotters  have 
managed  with  such  consummate  skill.  It  is  hardly  to 
be  doubted  that  in  every  part  of  the  South,  as  in  New 
Orleans,  in  Charleston,  in  Richmond,  there  are  multi 
tudes  who  wait  for  the  day  of  deliverance,  and  for 
whom  the  coming  of  "  our  good  friends,  the  enemies," 
as  Be"ranger  has  it,  will  be  like  the  advent  of  the 
angels  to  the  prison-cells  of  Paul  and  Silas,  But 
there  is  no  need  of  depending  on  the  aid  of  our  white 
Southern  friends,  be  they  many  or  be  they  few ;  there 
is  material  power  enough  in  the  North,  if  there  be  the 
will  to  use  it,  to  overrun  and  by  degrees  to  recolouize 
the  South,  and  it  is  far  from  impossible  that  some  such 
process  may  be  a  part  of  the  mechanism  of  its  new 
birth,  spreading  from  various  centres  of  organization, 
on  the  plan  which  Nature  follows  when  she  would  fill 
a  half-finished  tissue  with  blood-vessels  or  change  a 
temporary  cartilage  into  bone. 

Suppose,  however,  that  the  prospects  of  the  war 
were,  we  need  not  say  absolutely  hopeless,  —  because 
that  is  the  unfounded  hypothesis  of  those  whose  wish 
is  father  to  their  thought,  —  but  full  of  discourage 
ment.  Can  we  make  a  safe  and  honorable  peace  as 
the  quarrel  now  stands?  As  honor  comes  before 
safety,  let  us  look  at  that  first.  We  have  undertaken 
to  resent  a  supreme  insult,  and  have  had  to  bear  new 
insults  and  aggressions,  even  to  the  direct  menace  of 
our  national  capital.  The  blood  which  our  best  and 
bravest  have  shed  will  never  sink  into  the  ground 
until  our  wrongs  are  righted,  or  the  power  to  right 


104       PAGES  FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

them  is  shown  to  be  insufficient.  If  we  stop  now,  all 
the  loss  of  life  has  been  butchery ;  if  we  carry  out  the 
intention  with  which  we  first  resented  the  outrage,  the 
earth  drinks  up  the  blood  of  our  martyrs,  and  the  rose 
of  honor  blooms  forever  where  it  was  shed.  To  accept 
less  than  indemnity  for  the  past,  so  far  as  the  wretched 
kingdom  of  the  conspirators  can  afford  it,  and  security 
for  the  future,  would  discredit  us  in  our  own  eyes  and 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  hate  and  long  to  be  able  to 
despise  us.  But  to  reward  the  insults  and  the  rob 
beries  we  have  suffered,  by  the  surrender  of  our  for 
tresses  along  the  coast,  in  the  national  gulf,  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  national  river,  —  and  this  and  much 
more  would  surely  be  demanded  of  us,  —  would  place 
the  United  Fraction  of  America  on  a  level  with  the 
Peruvian  guano-islands,  whose  ignoble  but  coveted  soil 
is  open  to  be  plundered  by  all  comers ! 

If  we  could  make  a  peace  without  dishonor,  could 
we  make  one  that  would  be  safe  and  lasting?  We 
could  have  an  armistice,  no  doubt,  long  enough  for  the 
flesh  of  our  wounded  men  to  heal  and  their  broken 
bones  to  knit  together.  But  could  we  expect  a  solid, 
substantial,  enduring  peace,  in  which  the  grass  would 
have  time  to  grow  in  the  war-paths,  and  the  bruised 
arms  to  rust,  as  the  old  G.  R.  cannon  rusted  in  our 
State  arsenal,  sleeping  with  their  tompions  in  their 
mouths,  like  so  many  sucking  lambs?  It  is  not  the 
question  whether  the  same  set  of  soldiers  would  be 
again  summoned  to  the  field.  Let  us  take  it  for 
granted  that  we  have  seen  enough  of  the  miseries  of 
warfare  to  last  us  for  a  while,  and  keep  us  contented 
with  militia  musters  and  sham-fights.  The  question  is 
whether  we  could  leave  our  children  and  our  children's 
children  with  any  secure  trust  that  they  would  not 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  105 

have  to  go  through  the  very  trials  we  are  enduring, 
probably  on  a  more  extended  scale  and  in  a  more  ag 
gravated  form. 

It  may  be  well  to  look  at  the  prospects  before  us,  if 
a  peace  is  established  on  the  basis  of  Southern  inde 
pendence,  the  only  peace  possible,  unless  we  choose  to 
add  ourselves  to  the  four  millions  who  already  call  the 
Southern  whites  their  masters.  We  know  what  the 
prevailing  —  we  do  not  mean  universal  —  spirit  and 
temper  of  those  people  have  been  for  generations,  and 
what  they  are  like  to  be  after  a  long  and  bitter  war 
fare.  We  know  what  their  tone  is  to  the  people  of 
the  North  ;  if  we  do  not,  De  Bow  and  Governor  Ham 
mond  are  schoolmasters  who  will  teach  us  to  our 
heart's  content.  We  see  how  easily  their  social  organ 
ization  adapts  itself  to  a  state  of  warfare.  They  breed 
a  superior  order  of  men  for  leaders,  an  ignorant  com 
monalty  ready  to  follow  them  as  the  vassals  of  feudal 
times  followed  their  lords ;  and  a  race  of  bondsmen,  * 
who,  unless  this  war  changes  them  from  chattels  to 
human  beings,  will  continue  to  add  vastly  to  their  mil 
itary  strength  in  raising  their  food,  in  building  their 
fortifications,  in  all  the  mechanical  work  of  war,  in 
fact,  except,  it  may  be,  the  handling  of  weapons.  The 
institution  proclaimed  as  the  corner-stone  of  their  gov 
ernment  does  violence  not  merely  to  the  precepts  of 
religion,  but  to  many  of  the  best  human  instincts,  yet 
their  fanaticism  for  it  is  as  sincere  as  any  tribe  of  the 
desert  ever  manifested  for  the  faith  of  the  Prophet  of 
Allah.  They  call  themselves  by  the  same  name  as  the 
Christians  of  the  North,  yet  there  is  as  much  differ 
ence  .between  their  Christianity  and  that  of  Wesley  or 
of  Channing,  as  between  creeds  that  in  past  times  have 
vowed  mutual  extermination.  Still  we  must  not  call 


106       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

them  barbarians  because  they  cherish  an  institution 
hostile  to  civilization.  Their  highest  culture  stands 
out  all  the  more  brilliantly  from  the  dark  background 
of  ignorance  against  which  it  is  seen ;  but  it  would  be 
injustice  to  deny  that  they  have  always  shone  in  politi 
cal  science,  or  that  their  military  capacity  makes  them 
most  formidable  antagonists,  and  that,  however  infe 
rior  they  may  be  to  their  Northern  fellow-countrymen 
in  most  branches  of  literature  and  science,  the  social 
elegances  and  personal  graces  lend  their  outward  show 
to  the  best  circles  among  their  dominant  class. 

Whom  have  we  then  for  our  neighbors,  in  case  of 
separation,  —  our  neighbors  along  a  splintered  line  of 
fracture  extending  for  thousands  of  miles,  —  but  the 
Saracens  of  the  Nineteenth  Century ;  a  fierce,  intol 
erant,  fanatical  people,  the  males  of  which  will  be  a 
perpetual  standing  army ;  hating  us  worse  than  the 
Southern  Hamilcar  taught  his  swarthy  boy  to  hate  the 
Romans  ;  a  people  whose  existence  as  a  hostile  nation 
on  our  frontier  is  incompatible  with  our  peaceful  de 
velopment?  Their  wealth,  the  proceeds  of  enforced 
labor,  multiplied  by  the  breaking  up  of  new  cotton- 
fields,  and  in  due  time  by  the  reopening  of  the  slave- 
trade,  will  go  to  purchase  arms,  to  construct  fortresses, 
to  fit  out  navies.  The  old  Saracens,  fanatics  for  a  re 
ligion  which  professed  to  grow  by  conquest,  were  a  na 
tion  of  predatory  and  migrating  warriors.  The  South 
ern  people,  fanatics  for  a  system  essentially  aggressive, 
conquering,  wasting,  which  cannot  remain  stationary, 
but  must  grow  by  alternate  appropriations  of  labor 
and  of  land,  will  come  to  resemble  their  earlier  proto 
types.  Already,  even,  the  insolence  of  their  language 
to  the  people  of  the  North  is  a  close  imitation  of  the 
style  which  those  proud  and  arrogant  Asiatics  affected 


THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  107 

toward  all  the  nations  of  Europe.  What  the  "  Chris 
tian  dogs  "  were  to  the  followers  of  Mahomet,  the  "ac 
cursed  Yankees,"  the  "  Northern  mudsills  "  are  to  the 
followers  of  the  Southern  Moloch.  The  accomplish 
ments  which  we  find  in  their  choicer  circles  were  pre 
figured  in  the  court  of  the  chivalric  Saladin,  and  the 
long  train  of  Painim  knights  who  rode  forth  to  con 
quest  under  the  Crescent.  In  all  branches  of  culture, 
their  heathen  predecessors  went  far  beyond  them.  The 
schools  of  mediaeval  learning  were  filled  with  Arabian 
teachers.  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  the  Orien 
tal  astronomers,  as  Algorab  and  Aldebarau  repeat 
their  Arabic  names  to  the  students  of  the  starry  firma 
ment.  The  sumptuous  edifice  erected  by  the  Art  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  hold  the  treasures  of  its  Indus 
try,  could  show  nothing  fairer  than  the  court  which 
copies  the  Moorish  palace  that  crowns  the  summit  of 
Granada.  Yet  this  was  the  power  which  Charles  the 
Hammer,  striking  for  Christianity  and  civilization,  had 
to  break  like  a  potter's  vessel ;  these  were  the  people 
whom  Spain  had  to  utterly  extirpate  from  the  land 
where  they  had  ruled  for  centuries ! 

Prepare,  then,  if  you  unseal  the  vase  which  holds 
this  dangerous  Afrit  of  Southern  nationality,  for  a 
power  on  your  borders  that  will  be  to  you  what  the 
Saracens  were  to  Europe  before  the  son  of  Pepin  shat 
tered  their  armies,  and  flung  the  shards  and  shivers  of 
their  broken  strength  upon  the  refuse  heap  of  extin 
guished  barbarisms.  Prepare  for  the  possible  fate  of 
Christian  Spain ;  for  a  slave-market  in  Philadelphia  ; 
for  the  Alhanibra  of  a  Southern  caliph  on  the  grounds 
consecrated  by  the  domestic  virtues  of  a  long  line  of 
Presidents  and  their  exemplary  families.  Remember 
the  ages  of  border  warfare  between  England  and  Scot- 


108       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

land,  closed  at  last  by  the  union  of  the  two  kingdoms. 
Recollect  the  hunting  of  the  deer  on  the  Cheviot  hills, 
and  all  that  it  led  to  ;  then  think  of  the  game  which 
the  dogs  will  follow  open-mouthed  across  our  Southern 
border,  and  all  that  is  like  to  follow  which  the  child 
may  rue  that  is  unborn ;  think  of  these  possibilities,  or 
probabilities,  if  you  will,  and  say  whether  you  are 
ready  to  make  a  peace  which  will  give  you  such  a 
neighbor  ;  which  may  betray  your  civilization  as  that 
of  half  the  Peninsula  was  given  up  to  the  Moors ; 
which  may  leave  your  fair  border  provinces  to  be 
crushed  under  the  heel  of  a  tyrant,  as  Holland  was 
left  to  be  trodden  down  by  the  Duke  of  Alva ! 

No!  no!  fellow-citizens!  We  must  fight  in  this 
quarrel  until  one  side  or  the  other  is  exhausted. 
Rather  than  suffer  all  that  we  have  poured  out  of  our 
blood,  all  that  we  have  lavished  of  our  substance,  to 
have  been  expended  in  vain,  and  to  bequeath  an  un 
settled  question,  an  unfinished  conflict,  an  unavenged 
insult,  an  unrighted  wrong,  a  stained  escutcheon,  a  tar 
nished  shield,  a  dishonored  flag,  an  unheroic  memory 
to  the  descendants  of  those  who  have  always  claimed 
that  their  fathers  were  heroes ;  rather  than  do  all  this, 
it  were  hardly  an  American  exaggeration  to  say,  better 
that  the  last  man  and  the  last  dollar  should  be  followed 
by  the  last  woman  and  the  last  dime,  the  last  child  and 
the  last  copper ! 

There  are  those  who  profess  to  fear  that  our  govern 
ment  is  becoming  a  mere  irresponsible  tyranny.  If 
there  are  any  who  really  believe  that  our  present  Chief 
Magistrate  means  to  found  a  dynasty  for  himself  and 
family,  —  that  a  coup  d'etat  is  in  preparation  by  which 
he  is  to  become  ABRAHAM,  DEI  GRATIA  REX,  —  they 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  109 

cannot  have  duly  pondered  his  letter  of  June  12th,  in 
which  he  unbosoms  himself  with  the  simplicity  of  a 
rustic  lover  called  upon  by  an  anxious  parent  to  ex 
plain  his  intentions.  The  force  of  his  argument  is  not 
at  all  injured  by  the  homeliness  of  his  illustrations. 
The  American  people  are  not  much  afraid  that  their 
liberties  will  be  usurped.  An  army  of  legislators  is  not 
very  likely  to  throw  away  its  political  privileges,  and 
the  idea  of  a  despotism  resting  on  an  open  ballot-box, 
is  like  that  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument  built  on  the 
waves  of  Boston  Harbor.  We  know  pretty  well  how 
much  of  sincerity  there  is  in  the  fears  so  clamorously 
expressed,  and  how  far  they  are  found  in  company  with 
uncompromising  hostility  to  the  armed  enemies  of  the 
nation.  We  have  learned  to  put  a  true  value  on  the 
services  of  the  watch-dog  who  bays  the  moon,  but  does 
not  bite  the  thief ! 

The  men  who  are  so  busy  holy-stoning  the  quarter 
deck,  while  all  hands  are  wanted  to  keep  the  ship 
afloat,  can  no  doubt  show  spots  upon  it  that  would  be 
very  unsightly  in  fair  weather.  No  thoroughly  loyal 
man,  however,  need  suffer  from  any  arbitrary  exercise 
of  power,  such  as  emergencies  always  give  rise  to.  If 
any  half-loyal  man  forgets  his  code  of  half-decencies 
and  half-duties  so  far  as  to  become  obnoxious  to  the 
peremptory  justice  which  takes  the  place  of  slower 
forms  in  all  centres  of  conflagration,  there  is  no  sym 
pathy  for  him  among  the  soldiers  who  are  risking  their 
lives  for  us ;  perhaps  there  is  even  more  satisfaction 
than  when  an  avowed  traitor  is  caught  and  punished. 
For  of  all  men  who  are  loathed  by  generous  natures, 
such  as  fill  the  ranks  of  the  armies  of  the  Union,  none 
are  so  thoroughly  loathed  as  the  men  who  contrive  to 
keep  just  within  the  limits  of  the  law,  while  their  whole 


110       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

conduct  provokes  others  to  break  it ;  whose  patriotism 
consists  in  stopping  an  inch  short  of  treason,  and  whose 
political  morality  has  for  its  safeguard  a  just  respect 
for  the  jailer  and  the  hangman !  The  simple  preven 
tive  against  all  possible  injustice  a  citizen  is  like  to 
suffer  at  the  hands  of  a  government  which  in  its  need 
and  haste  must  of  course  commit  many  errors,  is  to 
take  care  to  do  nothing  that  will  directly  or  indirectly 
help  the  enemy,  or  hinder  the  government  in  carrying 
on  the  war.  When  th«  clamor  against  usurpation  and 
tyranny  comes  from  citizens  who  can  claim  this  neg 
ative  merit,  it  may  be  listened  to.  When  it  comes 
from  those  who  have  done  what  they  could  to  serve 
their  country,  it  will  receive  the  attention  it  deserves. 
Doubtless  there  may  prove  to  be  wrongs  which  de 
mand  righting,  but  the  pretence  of  any  plan  for 
changing  the  essential  principle  of  our  self-governing 
system  is  a  figment  which  its  contrivers  laugh  over 
among  themselves.  Do  the  citizens  of  Harrisburg  or 
of  Philadelphia  quarrel  to-day  about  the  strict  legality 
of  an  executive  act  meant  in  good  faith  for  their  pro 
tection  against  the  invader?  We  are  all  citizens  of 
Harrisburg,  all  citizens  of  Philadelphia,  in  this  hour 
of  their  peril,  and  with  the  enemy  at  work  in  our  own 
harbors,  we  begin  to  understand  the  difference  between 
a  good  and  bad  citizen ;  the  man  that  helps  and  the 
man  that  hinders ;  the  man  who,  while  the  pirate  is  in 
sight,  complain?  that  our  anchor  is  dragging  in  his 
mud,  and  the  man  who  violates  the  proprieties,  like 
our  brave  Portland  brothers,  when  they  jumped  on 
board  the  first  steamer  they  could  reach,  cut  her  cable, 
and  bore  down  on  the  corsair,  with  a  habeas  corpus 
act  that  lodged  twenty  buccaneers  in  Fort  Preble  before 
sunset  I 


THE  INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  Ill 

We  cannot,  then,  we  cannot  be  circling  inward  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  whirlpool  of  national  destruction. 
If  our  borders  are  invaded,  it  is  only  as  the  spur  that 
is  driven  into  the  courser's  flank  to  rouse  his  slumber 
ing  mettle.  If  our  property  is  taxed,  it  is  only  to 
teach  us  that  liberty  is  worth  paying  for  as  well  as 
fighting  for.  We  are  pouring  out  the  most  generous 
blood  of  our  youth  and  manhood ;  alas  !  this  is  always 
the  price  that  must  be  paid  for  the  redemption  of  a 
people.  What  have  we  to  complain  of,  whose  grana 
ries  are  choking  with  plenty,  whose  streets  are  gay 
with  shining  robes  and  glittering  equipages,  whose  in 
dustry  is  abundant  enough  to  reap  all  its  overflowing 
harvest,  yet  sure  of  employment  and  of  its  just  re 
ward,  the  soil  of  whose  mighty  valleys  is  an  inex 
haustible  mine  of  fertility,  whose  mountains  cover  up 
such  stores  of  heat  and  power,  imprisoned  in  their 
coal  measures,  as  would  warm  all  the  inhabitants  and 
work  all  the  machinery  of  our  planet  for  unnumbered 
ages,  whose  rocks  pour  out  rivers  of  oil,  whose  streams 
run  yellow  over  beds  of  golden  sand,  —  what  have  we 
to  complain  of  ? 

Have  we  degenerated  from  our  English  fathers,  so 
that  we  cannot  do  and  bear  for  our  national  salvation 
what  they  have  done  and  borne  over  and  over  again 
for  their  form  of  government?  Could  England,  in 
her  wars  with  Napoleon,  bear  an  income-tax  of  ten 
per  cent.,  and  must  we  faint  under  the  burden  of  an 
income-tax  of  three  per  cent.  ?  Was  she  content  to 
negotiate  a  loan  at  fifty-three  for  the  hundred,  and  that 
paid  in  depreciated  paper,  and  can  we  talk  about  finan 
cial  ruin  with  our  national  stocks  ranging  from  one  to 
eight  or  nine  above  par,  and  the  "  five-twenty  "  war 
loan  eagerly  taken  by  our  own  people  to  the  amount 


112        PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

of  nearly  two  hundred  millions,  without  any  check  to 
the  flow  of  the  current  pressing  inwards  against  the 
doors  of  the  Treasury  ?  Except  in  those  portions  of 
the  country  which  are  the  immediate  seat  of  war,  or 
liable  to  be  made  so,  and  which,  having  the  greatest 
interest  not  to  become  the  border  states  of  hostile 
nations,  can  best  afford  to  suffer  now,  the  state  of 
prosperity  and  comfort  is  such  as  to  astonish  those 
who  visit  us  from  other  countries.  What  are  war 
taxes  to  a  nation  which,  as  we  are  assured  on  good  au 
thority,  has  more  men  worth  a  million  now  than  it  had 
worth  ten  thousand  dollars  at  the  close  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  —  whose  whole  property  is  a  hundred  times,  and 
whose  commerce,  inland  and  foreign,  is  five  hundred 
times,  what  it  was  then  ?  But  we  need  not  study  Mr. 
Stilld's  pamphlet  and  "  Thompson's  Bank-Note  Re 
porter  "  to  show  us  what  we  know  well  enough,  — 
that,  so  far  from  having  occasion  to  tremble  in  fear  of 
our  impending  ruin,  we  must  rather  blush  for  our  ma 
terial  prosperity.  For  the  multitudes  who  are  unfor 
tunate  enough  to  be  taxed  for  a  million  or  more,  of 
course  we  must  feel  deeply,  at  the  same  time  suggest 
ing  that  the  more  largely  they  report  their  incomes  to 
the  tax-gatherer,  the  more  consolation  they  will  find  in 
the  feeling  that  they  have  served  their  country.  But, 
—  let  us  say  it  plainly,  —  it  will  not  hurt  our  people  to 
be  taught  that  there  are  other  things  to  be  cared  for 
besides  money-making  and  money-spending ;  that  the 
time  has  come  when  manhood  must  assert  itself  by 
brave  deeds  and  noble  thoughts ;  when  womanhood 
must  assume  its  most  sacred  office,  "  to  warn,  to  com 
fort,"  and,  if  need  be,  "to  command,"  those  whose 
services  their  country  calls  for.  This  Northern  section 
of  the  land  has  become  a  great  variety  shop,  of  which 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  113 

the  Atlantic  cities  are  the  long-extended  counter.  We 
have  grown  rich  for  what?  To  put  gilt  bands  on 
coachmen's  hats  ?  To  sweep  the  foul  sidewalks  with 
the  heaviest  silks  which  the  toiling  artisans  of  France 
can  send  us?  To  look  through  plate-glass  windows, 
and  pity  the  brown  soldiers,  —  or  sneer  at  the  black 
ones  ?  to  reduce  the  speed  of  trotting  horses  a  second 
or  two  below  its  old  minimum  ?  to  color  meerschaums  ? 
to  flaunt  in  laces,  and  sparkle  in  diamonds  ?  to  dredge 
our  maidens'  hair  with  gold-dust  ?  to  float  through  life, 
the  passive  shuttlecocks  of  fashion,  from  the  avenues 
to  the  beaches,  and  back  again  from  the  beaches  to  the 
avenues  ?  Was  it  for  this  that  the  broad  domain  of 
the  Western  hemisphere  was  kept  so  long  unvisited  by 
civilization  ?  —  for  this,  that  Time,  the  father  of  em 
pires,  unbound  the  virgin  zone  of  this  youngest  of  his 
daughters,  and  gave  her,  beautiful  in  the  long  veil  of 
her  forests,  to  the  rude  embrace  of  the  adventurous 
Colonist  ?  All  this  is  what  we  see  around  us,  now,  — 
now  while  we  are  actually  fighting  this  great  battle, 
and  supporting  this  great  load  of  indebtedness.  Wait 
till  the  diamonds  go  back  to  the  Jews  of  Amsterdam  ; 
till  the  plate-glass  window  bears  the  fatal  announce 
ment,  For  Sale  or  to  Let ;  till  the  voice  of  our  Miriam 
is  obeyed,  as  she  sings, 

"  Weave  no  more  silks,  ye  Lyons  looms  !  " 

till  the  gold-dust  is  combed  from  the  golden  locks,  and 
hoarded  to  buy  bread ;  till  the  fast-driving  youth 
smokes  his  clay-pipe  on  the  platform  of  the  horse-cars ; 
till  the  music-grinders  cease  because  none  will  pay 
them;  till  there  are  no  peaches  in  the  windows  at 
twenty-four  dollars  a  dozen,  and  no  heaps  of  bananas 
and  pine-apples  selling  at  the  street-corners  ;  till  the 


114       PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

ten-flounced  dress  has  but  three  flounces,  and  it  is 
felony  to  drink  champagne;  wait  till  these  changes 
show  themselves,  the  signs  of  deeper  wants,  the  pre 
ludes  of  exhaustion  and  bankruptcy ;  then  let  us  talk 
of  the  Maelstrom  ;  —  but  till  then,  let  us  not  be  cow 
ards  with  our  purses,  while  brave  men  are  emptying 
their  hearts  upon  the  earth  for  us ;  let  us  not  whine 
over  our  imaginary  ruin,  while  the  reversed  current  of 
circling  events  is  carrying  us  farther  and  farther, 
every  hour,  out  of  the  influence  of  the  great  failing 
which  was  born  of  our  wealth,  and  of  the  deadly  sin 
which  was  our  fatal  inheritance ! 

Let  us  take  a  brief  general  glance  at  the  wide  field 
of  discussion  we  are  just  leaving. 

On  Friday,  the  twelfth  day  of  the  month  of  April, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty- 
one,  at  half-past  four  of  the  clock  in  the  morning,  a 
cannon  was  aimed  and  fired  by  the  authority  of  South 
Carolina  at  the  wall  of  a  fortress  belonging  to  the 
United  States.  Its  ball  carried  with  it  the  hatreds, 
the  rages  of  thirty  years,  shaped  and  cooled  in  the 
mould  of  malignant  deliberation.  Its  wad  was  the 
charter  of  our  national  existence.  Its  muzzle  was 
pointed  at  the  stone  which  bore  the  symbol  of  our  na 
tional  sovereignty.  As  the  echoes  of  its  thunder  died 
away,  the  telegraph  clicked  one  word  through  every 
office  of  the  land.  That  word  was  WAR  ! 

War  is  a  child  that  devours  its  nurses  one  after  an 
other,  until  it  is  claimed  by  its  true  parents.  This 
war  has  eaten  its  way  backward  through  all  the  tech 
nicalities  of  lawyers  learned  in  the  infinitesimals  of 
ordinances  and  statutes  ;  through  all  the  casuistries  of 
divines,  experts  in  the  differential  calculus  of  con- 


THE   INEVITABLE   TRIAL.  115 

science  and  duty ;  until  it  stands  revealed  to  all  men 
as  the  natural  and  inevitable  conflict  of  two  incom 
patible  forms  of  civilization,  one  or  the  other  of  which 
must  dominate  the  central  zone  of  the  continent,  and 
eventually  claim  the  hemisphere  for  its  development. 

We  have  reached  the  region  of  those  broad  princi 
ples  and  large  axioms  which  the  wise  Romans,  the 
world's  lawgivers,  always  recognized  as  above  all  spe 
cial  enactments.  We  have  come  to  that  solid  substra 
tum  acknowledged  by  Grotius  in  his  great  Treatise: 
"Necessity  itself  which  reduces  things  to  the  mere 
right  of  Nature."  The  old  rides  which  were  enough 
for  our  guidance  in  quiet  times,  have  become  as  mean 
ingless  "  as  moonlight  on  the  dial  of  the  day."  We 
have  followed  precedents  as  long  as  they  could  guide 
us ;  now  we  must  make  precedents  for  the  ages  which 
are  to  succeed  us. 

If  we  are  frightened  from  our  object  by  the  money 
we  have  spent,  the  current  prices  of  United  States 
stocks  show  that  we  value  our  nationality  at  only  a 
small  fraction  of  our  wealth.  If  we  feel  that  we  are 
paying  too  dearly  for  it  in  the  blood  of  our  people, 
let  us  recall  those  grand  words  of  Samuel  Adams  :  — 

"  I  should  advise  persisting  in  our  struggle  for 
liberty,  though  it  were  revealed  from  heaven  that  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  were  to  perish,  and  only  one 
of  a  thousand  were  to  survive  and  retain  his  liberty !  " 

What  we  want  now  is  a  strong  purpose ;  the  pur 
pose  of  Luther,  when  he  said,  in  repeating  his  Pater 
Noster,  fiat  voluntas  MEA,  —  let  my  will  be  done ; 
though  he  considerately  added,  quia  Tua^  —  because 
my  will  is  Thine.  We  want  the  virile  energy  of  de 
termination  which  made  the  oath  of  Andrew  Jackson 
sound  so  like  the  devotion  of  an  ardent  saint  that  the 


116       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

recording  augel  might  have  entered  it  unquestioned 
among  the  prayers  of  the  faithful. 

War  is  a  grim  business.  Two  years  ago  our  wom 
en's  fingers  were  busy  making  "  Havelocks."  It 
seemed  to  us  then  as  if  the  Havelock  made  half  the 
soldier ;  and  now  we  smile  to  think  of  those  days  of 
inexperience  and  illusion.  We  know  now  what  War 
means,  and  we  cannot  look  its  dull,  dead  ghastliness 
in  the  face  unless  we  feel  that  there  is  some  great  and 
noble  principle  behind  it .  It  makes  little  difference 
what  we  thought  we  were  fighting  for  at  first ;  we 
know  what  we  are  fighting  for  now,  and  what  we  are 
fighting  against. 

We  are  fighting  for  our  existence.  We  say  to 
those  who  would  take  back  their  several  contributions 
to  that  undivided  unity  which  we  call  the  Nation  ;  the 
bronze  is  cast ;  the  statue  is  on  its  pedestal ;  you  can 
not  reclaim  the  brass  you  flung  into  the  crucible! 
There  are  rights,  possessions,  privileges,  policies,  re 
lations,  duties,  acquired,  retained,  called  into  existence 
in  virtue  of  the  principle  of  absolute  solidarity,  —  be 
longing  to  the  United  States  as  an  organic  whole,  — 
which  cannot  be  divided,  which  none  of  its  constitu 
ent  parties  can  claim  as  its  own,  which  perish  out  of 
its  living  frame  when  the  wild  forces  of  rebellion  tear 
it  limb  from  limb,  and  which  it  must  defend,  or  con 
fess  self-government  itself  a  failure. 

We  are  fighting  for  that  Constitution  upon  which 
our  national  existence  reposes,  now  subjected  by  those 
who  fired  the  scroll  on  which  it  was  written  from  the 
cannon  at  Fort  Sumter,  to  all  those  chances  which 
the  necessities  of  war  entail  upon  every  human  ar 
rangement,  but  still  the  venerable  charter  of  our  wide 
Republic. 


THE  INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  117 

We  cannot  fight  for  these  objects  without  attack 
ing  the  one  mother  cause  of  all  the  progeny  of  lesser 
antagonisms.  Whether  we  know  it  or  not,  whether 
we  mean  it  or  not,  we  cannot  help  fighting  against  the 
system  that  has  proved  the  source  of  all  those  miseries 
which  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
trembled  to  anticipate.  And  this  ought  to  make  us 
willing  to  do  and  to  suffer  cheerfully.  There  were 
Holy  Wars  of  old,  in  which  it  was  glory  enough  to 
die,  wars  in  which  the  one  aim  was  to  rescue  the  sep 
ulchre  of  Christ  from  the  hands  of  infidels.  The 
sepulchre  of  Christ  is  not  in  Palestine!  He  rose 
from  that  burial-place  more  than  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago.  He  is  crucified  wherever  his  brothers  are 
slain  without  cause;  he  lies  buried  wherever  man, 
made  in  his  Maker's  image,  is  entombed  in  ignorance 
lest  he  should  learn  the  rights  which  his  Divine  Mas 
ter  gave  him !  This  is  our  Holy  War,  and  we  must 
fight  it  against  that  great  General  who  will  bring  to 
it  all  the  powers  with  which  he  fought  against  the 
Almighty  before  he  was  cast  down  from  heaven.  He 
has  retained  many  a  cunning  advocate  to  recruit  for 
him  ;  he  has  bribed  many  a  smooth-tongued  preacher 
to  be  his  chaplain ;  he  has  engaged  the  sordid  by 
their  avarice,  the  timid  by  their  fears,  the  profligate 
by  their  love  of  adventure,  and  thousands  of  nobler 
natures  by  motives  which  we  can  all  understand; 
whose  delusion  we  pity  as  we  ought  always  to  pity  the 
error  of  those  who  know  not  what  they  do.  Against 
him  or  for  him  we  are  all  called  upon  to  declare  our 
selves.  There  is  no  neutrality  for  any  single  true- 
born  American.  If  any  seek  such  a  position,  the 
stony  finger  of  Dante's  awful  muse  points  them  to 
their  place  in  the  antechamber  of  the  Halls  of  De 
spair,  — 


118        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

—  "  With  that  ill  baud 
Of  angels  mixed,  who  nor  rebellious  proved, 
Nor  yet  were  true  to  God,  but  for  themselves 
Were  only."  — 

—  "  Fame  of  them  the  world  hath  none 
Nor  suffers;  mercy  and  justice  scorn  them  both. 
Speak  not  of  them,  but  look,  and  pass  them  by." 

We  must  use  all  the  means  which  God  has  put  into 
our  hands  to  serve  him  against  the  enemies  of  civiliza 
tion.  We  must  make  and  keep  the  great  river  free, 
whatever  it  costs  us  ;  it  is  strapping  up  the  forefoot  of 
the  wild,  untamable  rebellion.  We  must  not  be  too 
nice  in  the  choice  of  our  agents.  JVo/*  eget  Mauri 
jaculis,  —  no  African  bayonets  wanted,  —  was  well 
enough  while  we  did  not  yet  know  the  might  of  that 
desperate  giant  we  had  to  deal  with ;  but  TVos,  Ty- 
riusve,  —  white  or  black,  —  is  the  safer  motto  now ; 
for  a  good  soldier,  like  a  good  horse,  cannot  be  of  a 
bad  color.  The  iron-skins,  as  well  as  the  iron-clads, 
have  already  done  us  noble  service,  and  many  a  mother 
will  clasp  the  returning  boy,  many  a  wife  will  welcome 
back  the  war-worn  husband,  whose  smile  would  never 
again  have  gladdened  his  home,  but  that,  cold  in  the 
shallow  trench  of  the  battle-field,  lies  the  half-buried 
form  of  the  unchained  bondsman  whose  dusky  bosom 
sheathes  the  bullet  which  would  else  have  claimed 
that  darling  as  his  country's  sacrifice  ! 

We  shall  have  success  if  we  truly  will  success,  — 
not  otherwise.  It  may  be  long  in  coming,  —  Heaven 
only  knows  through  what  trials  and  huinblings  we  may 
have  to  pass  before  the  full  strength  of  the  nation  is 
duly  arrayed  and  led  to  victory.  We  must  be  patient, 
as  our  fathers  were  patient ;  even  in  our  worst  calami- 
ties,  we  must  remember  that  defeat  itself  may  be  a 


THE   INEVITABLE  TRIAL.  119 

gain  where  it  costs  our  enemy  more  in  relation  to  his 
strength  than  it  costs  ourselves.  But  if,  in  the  inscru 
table  providence  of  the  Almighty,  this  generation  is 
disappointed  in  its  lofty  aspirations  for  the  race,  if  we 
have  not  virtue  enough  to  ennoble  our  whole  people, 
and  make  it  a  nation  of  sovereigns,  we  shall  at  least 
hold  in  undying  honor  those  who  vindicated  the  in 
sulted  majesty  of  the  Republic,  and  struck  at  her  as 
sailants  so  long  as  a  drum-beat  summoned  them  to  the 
field  of  duty. 

Citizens  of  Boston,  sons  and  daughters  of  New  Eng 
land,  men  and  women  of  the  North,  brothers  and 
sisters  in  the  bond  of  the  American  Union,  you  have 
among  you  the  scarred  and  wasted  soldiers  who  have 
shed  their  blood  for  your  temporal  salvation.  They 
bore  your  nation's  emblems  bravely  through  the  fire 
and  smoke  of  the  battle-field ;  nay,  their  own  bodies 
are  starred  with  bullet-wounds  and  striped  with  sabre- 
cuts,  as  if  to  mark  them  as  belonging  to  their  country 
until  their  dust  becomes  a  portion  of  the  soil  which 
they  defended.  In  every  Northern  graveyard  slumber 
the  victims  of  this  destroying  struggle.  Many  whom 
you  remember  playing  as  children  amidst  the  clover- 
blossoms  of  our  Northern  fields,  sleep  under  nameless 
mounds  with  strange  Southern  wild-flowers  blooming 
over  them.  By  those  wounds  of  living  heroes,  by  those 
graves  of  fallen  martyrs,  by  the  hopes  of  your  children, 
and  the  claims  of  your  children's  children  yet  unborn, 
in  the  name  of  outraged  honor,  in  the  interest  of  vio 
lated  sovereignty,  for  the  life  of  an  imperilled  nation, 
for  the  sake  of  men  everywhere  and  of  our  common 
humanity,  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  advancement 
of  his  kingdom  on  earth,  your  country  calls  upon  you 
to  stand  by  her  through  good  report  and  through  evil 


120       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

report,  in  triumph  and  in  defeat,  until  she  emerges 
from  the  great  war  of  Western  civilization,  Queen  of 
the  broad  continent,  Arbitress  in  the  councils  of  earth's 
emancipated  peoples ;  until  the  flag  that  fell  from  the 
wall  of  Fort  Sumter  floats  again  inviolate,  supreme, 
over  all  her  ancient  inheritance,  every  fortress,  every 
capital,  every  ship,  and  this  warring  land  is  once  more 
a  United  Nation ! 


IV. 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  WALKING. 

THE  two  accomplishments  common  to  all  mankind 
are  walking  and  talking.  Simple  as  they  seem,  they 
are  yet  acquired  with  vast  labor,  and  very  rarely  un 
derstood  in  any  clear  way  by  those  who  practise  them 
with  perfect  ease  and  unconscious  skill. 

Talking  seems  the  hardest  to  comprehend.  Yet  it 
has  been  clearly  explained  and  successfully  imitated  by 
artificial  contrivances.  We  know  that  the  moist  mem 
branous  edges  of  a  narrow  crevice  (the  glottis)  vibrate 
as  the  reed  of  a  clarionet  vibrates,  and  thus  produce 
the  human  bleat.  We  narrow  or  widen  or  check  or 
stop  the  flow  of  this  sound  by  the  lips,  the  tongue,  the 
teeth,  and  thus  articulate,  or  break  into  joints,  the 
even  current  of  sound.  The  sound  varies  with  the  de 
gree  and  kind  of  interruption,  as  the  "  babble  "  of  the 
brook  with  the  shape  and  size  of  its  impediments,  — 


122       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

pebbles,  or  rocks,  or  dams.  To  whisper  is  to  articulate 
without  bleating,  or  vocalizing,  to  coo  as  babies  do  is 
to  bleat  or  vocalize  without  articulating.  Machines 
are  easily  made  that  bleat  not  unlike  human  beings. 
A  bit  of  India-rubber  tube  tied  round  a  piece  of  glass 
tube  is  one  of  the  simplest  voice-uttering  contrivances. 
To  make  a  machine  that  articulates  is  not  so  easy ; 
but  we  remember  Maelzel's  wooden  children,  which 
said,  "  Pa-pa  "  and  "  Ma-ma  " ;  and  more  elaborate  and 
successful  speaking  machines  have,  we  believe,  been 
since  constructed. 

But  no  man  has  been  able  to  make  a  figure  that  can 
walk.  Of  all  the  automata  imitating  men  or  animals 
moving,  there  is  not  one  in  which  the  legs  are  the  true 
sources  of  motion.  So  said  the  Webers a  more  than 
twenty  years  ago,  and  it  is  as  true  now  as  then.  These 
authors,  after  a  profound  experimental  and  mathemat 
ical  investigation  of  the  mechanism  of  animal  locomo 
tion,  recognize  the  fact  that  our  knowledge  is  not  yet 
so  far  advanced  that  we  can  hope  to  succeed  in  mak 
ing  real  walking  machines.  But  they  conceive  that 
the  time  may  come  hereafter  when  colossal  figures  will 
be  constructed  whose  giant  strides  will  not  be  arrested 
by  the  obstacles  which  are  impassable  to  wheeled  con 
veyances. 

We  wish  to  give  our  readers  as  clear  an  idea  as  pos 
sible  of  that  wonderful  art  of  balanced  vertical  pro 
gression  which  they  have  practised,  as  M.  Jourdain 
talked  prose,  for  so  many  years,  without  knowing  what 
a  marvellous  accomplishment  they  had  mastered.  We 
shall  have  to  begin  with  a  few  simple  anatomical  data. 

•  Tratie  de  la  Mechoniqne  des  Oryanes  de  la  Locomotion. 
Translated  from  the  German  in  the  Encyclopedic  Analomique. 
Paris,  1843. 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF   WALKING.  123 

The  foot  is  arched  both  longitudinally  and  trans 
versely,  so  as  to  give  it  elasticity,  and  thus  break  the 
sudden  shock  when  the  weight  of  the  body  is  thrown 
upon  it.  The  ankle-joint  is  a  loose  hinge,  and  the 
great  muscles  of  the  calf  can  straighten  the  foot  out 
so  far  that  practised  dancers  walk  on  the  tips  of  their 
toes.  The  knee  is  another  hinge-joint,  which  allows' 
the  leg  to  bend  freely,  but  not  to  be  carried  beyond  a 
straight  line  in  the  other  direction.  Its  further  for 
ward  movement  is  checked  by  two  very  powerful  cords 
in  the  interior  of  the  joint,  which  cross  each  other  like 
the  letter  X,  and  are  hence  called  the  crucial  liga 
ments.  The  upper  ends  of  the  thigh-bones  are  almost 
globes,  which  are  received  into  the  deep  cup-like  cavi 
ties  of  the  haunch-bones.  They  are  tied  to  these  last 
so  loosely,  that,  if  their  ligaments  alone  held  them, 
they  would  be  half  out  of  their  sockets  in  many  posi 
tions  of  the  lower  limbs.  But  here  comes  in  a  simple 
and  admirable  contrivance.  The  smooth,  rounded 
head  of  the  thigh-bone,  moist  with  glairy  fluid,  fits  so 
perfectly  into  the  smooth,  rounded  cavity  which  re 
ceives  it,  that  it  holds  firmly  by  suction,  or  atmos 
pheric  pressure.  It  takes  a  hard  pull  to  draw  it  out 
after  all  the  ligaments  are  cut,  and  then  it  comes  with 
a  smack  like  a  tight  cork  from  a  bottle.  Holding  in 
this  way  by  the  close  apposition  of  two  polished  sur 
faces,  the  lower  extremity  swings  freely  forward  and 
backward  like  a  pendulum,  if  we  give  it  a  chance,  as 
is  shown  by  standing  on  a  chair  upon  the  other  limb, 
and  moving  the  pendent  one  out  of  the  vertical  line. 
The  force  witH  which  it  swings  depends  upon  its 
weight,  and  this  is  much  greater  than  we  might  at  first 
suppose  ;  for  our  limbs  not  only  carry  themselves,  but 
our  bodies  also,  with  a  sense  of  lightness  rather  than 


124        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

of  weight,  when  we  are  in  good  condition.  Accident 
sometimes  makes  us  aware  how  heavy  our  limbs  are. 
An  officer,  whose  arm  was  shattered  by  a  ball  in  one 
of  our  late  battles,  told  us  that  the  dead  weight  of  the 
helpless  member  seemed  to  drag  him  down  to  the 
earth ;  he  could  hardly  carry  it ;  it  "  weighed  a  ton," 
to  his  feeling,  as  he  said. 

In  ordinary  walking  a  man's  lower  extremity  swings 
essentially  by  its  own  weight,  requiring  little  muscular 
effort  to  help  it.  So  heavy  a  body  easily  overcomes 
all  impediments  from  clothing,  even  in  the  sex  least 
favored  in  its  costume.  But  if  a  man's  legs  are  pen 
dulums,  then  a  short  man's  legs  will  swing  quicker 
than  a  tall  man's,  and  he  will  take  more  steps  to  a 
minute,  other  things  being  equal.  Thus  there  is  a  nat 
ural  rhythm  to  a  man's  walk,  depending  on  the  length 
of  his  legs,  which  beat  more  or  less  rapidly  as  they  are 
longer  or  shorter,  like  metronomes  differently  ad 
justed,  or  the  pendulums  of  different  time-keepers. 
Commodore  Nutt  is  to  M.  Bihin  in  this  respect  as  a 
little,  fast-ticking  mantel-clock  is  to  an  old-fashioned, 
solemn-clicking,  upright  time-piece. 

The  mathematical  formulae  in  which  the  Messrs. 
Weber  embody  their  results  would  hardly  be  instruc 
tive  to  most  of  our  readers.  The  figures  of  their 
Atlas  would  serve  our  purpose  better,  had  we  not  the 
means  of  coming  nearer  to  the  truth  than  even  their 
careful  studies  enabled  them  to  do.  We  have  selected 
a  number  of  instantaneous  stereoscopic  views  of  the 
streets  and  public  places  of  Paris  an(J  of  New  York, 
each  of  them  showing  numerous  walking  figures, 
among  which  some  may  be  found  in  every  stage  of  the 
complex  act  we  are  studying.  Mr.  Darley  has  had 
the  kindness  to  leave  his  higher  tasks  to  transfer  sev- 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF  WALKING. 


125 


eral  of  these  to  our  pages,  so  that  the  reader  may  be 
sure  that  he  looks  upon  an  exact  copy  of  real  human 
individuals  in  the  act  of  walking. 

The  first  subject  is  caught  with  his  legs  stretched  in 
a  stride,  the  remarkable  length  of  which  arrests  our 
attention.  The  sole  of  the  right  foot  is  almost  verti 
cal.  By  the  action  of  the  muscles  of  the  calf  it  has 
rolled  off  from  the  ground  like  a  portion  of  the  tire  of 


Fig.  1. 

a  wheel,  the  heel  rising  first,  and  thus  the  body,  al 
ready  advancing  with  all  its  acquired  velocity,  and  in 
clined  forward,  has  been  pushed  along,  and,  as  it  were, 
tipped  over,  so  as  to  fall  upon  the  other  foot,  now 
ready  to  receive  its  weight. 

In  the  second  figure,  the  right  leg  is  bending  at  the 
knee,  so  as  to  lift  the  foot  from  the  ground,  in  order 
that  it  may  swing  forward. 

The  next  stage  of  movement  is  shown  in  the  left  leg 


126       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

of  Figure  3.  This  leg  is  seen  suspended  in  air,  a  lit 
tle  beyond  the  middle  of  the  arc  through  which  it 
swings,  and  before  it  has  straightened  itself,  which  it 
will  presently  do,  as  shown  in  the  next  figure. 

The  foot  has  now  swung  forward,  and  tending  to 
swing  back  again,  the  limb  being  straightened,  and  the 
body  tipped  forward,  the  heel  strikes  die  ground.  The 
angle  which  the  sole  of  the  foot  forms  with  the  ground 
increases  with  the  length  of  the  stride;  and  as  this 


last  surprised  us,  so  the  extent  of  this  angle  astonishes 
us  in  many  of  the  figures,  in  this  among  the  rest. 

The  heel  strikes  the  ground  with  great  force,  as  the 
wear  of  our  boots  and  shoes  in  that  part  shows  us. 
But  the  projecting  heel  of  the  human  foot  is  the  arm 
of  a  lever,  having  the  ankle-joint  as  its  fulcrum,  and, 
as  it  strikes  the  ground,  brings  the  sole  of  the  foot 
down  fiat  upon  it,  as  shown  in  Fig.  1.  At  the  same 
time  the  weight  of  the  limb  and  body  is  thrown  upon 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF   WALKING.  127 

the  foot,  by  the  joint  effect  of  muscular  action  and  ac 
quired  velocity,  and  the  other  foot  is  now  ready  to  rise 
from  the  ground  and  repeat  the  process  we  have  traced 
in  its  fellow. 

No  artist  would  have  dared  to  draw  a  walking  fig 
ure  in  attitudes  like  some  of  these.  The  swinging 
limb  is  so  much  shortened  that  the  toe  never  by  any 
accident  scrapes  the  ground,  if  this  is  tolerably  even. 
In  cases  of  partial  paralysis,  the  scraping  of  the  toe,  as 


the  patient  walks,  is  one  of  the  characteristic  marks  of 
imperfect  muscular  action. 

Walking,  then,  is  a  perpetual  falling  with  a  perpet 
ual  self-recovery.  It  is  a  most  complex,  violent,  and 
perilous  operation,  which  we  divest  of  its  extreme  dan 
ger  only  by  continual  practice  from  a  very  early  pe 
riod  of  life.  We  find  how  complex  it  is  when  we 
attempt  to  analyze  it,  and  we  see  that  we  never -under 
stood  it  thoroughly  until  the  time  of  the  instantaneous 


128       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

photograph.  We  learn  how  violent  it  is,  when  we 
walk  against  a  post  or  a  door  in  the  dark.  We  discover 
how  dangerous  it  is,  when  we  slip  or  trip  and  come 
down,  perhaps  breaking  or  dislocating  our  limbs,  or 
overlook  the  last  step  of  a  flight  of  stairs,  and  discover 
with  what  headlong  violence  we  have  been  hurling 
ourselves  forward. 

Two  curious  facts  are  easily  proved.     First,  a  man 
is  shorter  when  he  is  walking  than  when  at  rest.     We 


Fig.  4. 

have  found  a  very  simple  way  of  showing  this  by  hav 
ing  a  rod  or  yardstick  placed  horizontally,  so  as  to 
touch  the  top  of  the  head  forcibly,  as  we  stand  under 
it.  In  walking  rapidly  beneath  it,  even  if  the  eyes  are 
shut,  to  avoid  involuntary  stooping,  the  top  of  the 
head  will  not  even  graze  the  rod.  The  other  fact  is, 
that  one  side  of  a  man  always  tends  to  outwalk  the 
other  side,  so  that  no  person  can  walk  far  in  a  straight 
line,  if  he  is  blindfolded. 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF   WALKING.  129 

The  somewhat  singular  illustration  at  the  head  of 
our  article  carries  out  an  idea  which  has  only  been  par 
tially  alluded  to  by  others.  Man  is  a  wheel,  with  two 
spokes,  his  legs,  and  two  fragments  of  a  tire,  his  feet. 
He  rolls  successively  on  each  of  these  fragments  from 
the  heel  to  the  toe.  If  he  had  spokes  enough,  he  would 
go  round  and  round  as  the  boys  do  when  they  "  make 
a  wheel "  with  their  four  limbs  for  its  spokes.  But 
having  only  two  available  for  ordinary  locomotion, 
each  of  these  has  to  be  taken  up  as  soon  as  it  has  been 
used,  and  carried  forward  to  be  used  again,  and  so  al 
ternately  with  the  pair.  The  peculiarity  of  biped- 
walking  is,  that  the  centre  of  gravity  is  shifted  from 
one  leg  to  the  other,  and  the  one  not  employed  can 
shorten  itself  so  as  to  swing  forward,  passing  by  that 
which  supports  the  body. 

This  is  just  what  no  automaton  can  do.  Many  of 
our  readers  have,  however,  seen  a  young  lady  in  the 
shop  windows,  or  entertained  her  in  their  own  nurse 
ries,  who  professes  to  be  this  hitherto  impossible  walk 
ing  automaton,  and  who  calls  herself  by  the  Homer 
ic-sounding  epithet  Autoperipatetikos.  The  golden- 
booted  legs  of  this  young  lady  remind  us  of  Miss 
Kilmansegg,  while  the  size  of  her  feet  assures  us  that 
she  is  not  in  any  way  related  to  Cinderella.  On  being 
wound  up,  as  if  she  were  a  piece  of  machinery,  and 
placed  on  a  level  surface,  she  proceeds  to  toddle  off, 
taking  very  short  steps,  like  a  child,  holding  herself 
very  stiff  and  straight,  with  a  little  lifting  at  each  step, 
and  all  this  with  a  mighty  inward  whirring  and  buzz 
ing  of  the  enginery  which  constitutes  her  muscular 
system. 

An  autopsy  of  one  of  her  family  who  fell  into  our 
hands  reveals  the  secret  springs  of  her  action.  Wish- 


130       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

ing  to  spare  her  as  a  member  of  the  defenceless  sex,  it 
pains  us  to  say,  that,  ingenious  as  her  counterfeit  walk 
ing  is,  she  is  an  impostor.  Worse  than  this,  —  with 
all  our  reverence  for  her  brazen  crinoline,  duty  compels 
us  to  reveal  a  fact  concerning  her  which  will  shock  the 
feelings  of  those  who  have  watched  the  stately  rigidity 
of  decorum  with  which  she  moves  in  the  presence  of 
admiring  multitudes.  She  is  a  quadruped  !  Inside 
of  her  great  golden  boots,  which  represent  one  pair  of 
feet,  is  another  smaller  pair,  which  move  freely  through 
those  hollow  casings. 

Four  cams  or  eccentric  wheels  impart  motion  to  her 
four  supports,  by  which  she  is  carried  forward,  always 


resting  on  two  of  them, — the  boot  of  one  side  and  the 
foot  of  the  other.  Her  movement,  then,  is  not  walk 
ing  ;  it  is  not  skating,  which  it  seems  to  resemble  ;  it  is 
more  like  that  of  a  person  walking  with  two  crutches 
besides  his  two  legs.  The  machinery  is  simple  enough ; 
a  strong  spiral  spring,  three  or  four  cog-wheels  and 
pinions,  a  fly  to  regulate  the  motion,  as  in  a  musical 
box,  and  the  cams  before  mentioned.  As  a  toy,  it  or 
she  is  very  taking  to  grown  people  as  well  as  children. 
It  is  a  literal  fact,  that  the  police  requested  one  of  our 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF   WALKING.  131 

dealers  to  remove  Miss  Autoperipatetikos  from  his 
window,  because  the  crowd  she  drew  obstructed  the 
sidewalk. 

It  is  said  that  a  steam  man  is  in  process  of  construc 
tion  at  this  time  (January,  1883),  who  is  to  stride  over 
the  roughest  roads  dragging  his  burden  after  him. 
The  answer  to  any  doubt  is  /Solvitur  Ambulando. 


V. 

THE  SEASONS. 

SPRING. 

THE  following  notice  has  been  put  up  everywhere  in 
flaming  letters  for  about  six  thousand  years,  according 
to  the  chronology  of  Archbishop  Usher,  and  for  a 
much  longer  period,  if  some  more  recent  cosmogonists 
can  be  trusted :  — 

"  Walk  in,  ladies  and  gentlemen !  The  wonderful 
exhibition  of  the  Seasons  is  about  to  commence ;  four 
shows  under  one  cover  ;  the  best  ventilated  place  of 
entertainment  in  this  or  any  other  system  ;  the  stage 
lighted  by  solar,  lunar,  and  astral  lamps  ;  an  efficient 
police  will  preserve  order.  Gentlemanly  ushers  will 
introduce  all  new-comers  to  their  places.  Perform 
ance  in  twelve  parts.  Overture  by  the  feathered 
choir ;  after  which  the  white  drop  curtain  will  rise, 
showing  the  remarkable  succession  of  natural  scenery 
designed  and  executed  solely  for  this  planet,  —  real 
forests,  meadows,  water,  earth,  skies,  etc.  At  the  con 
clusion  of  each  series  of  performances  the  storm-chorus 
will  be  given  with  the  whole  strength  of  the  wind-in 
strument  orchestra,  and  the  splendid  snow  scene  will 
be  introduced,  illuminated  by  grand  flashes  of  the 
Aurora  Borealis.  Admittance  free,  refreshments  fur 
nished,  complete  suits  of  proper  costume  supplied  at 
the  door,  to  be  returned  on  leaving  the  exhibition" 


THE   SEASONS.  133 

Such  is  Nature's  programme,  —  worth  attending  to, 
one  might  think,  —  yet  there  are  great  multitudes 
who  lounge  into  the  show  and  out  of  it,  after  being 
present  at  as  many  as  threescore  and  ten  performances 
in  succession,  without  ever  really  looking  at  the  scen 
ery,  or  listening  to  the  music,  or  observing  the  chief 
actors  in  the  great  drama.  Some  are  too  busy  with 
their  books  or  their  handicraft,  and  many  women, 
even,  who  ought  to  enjoy  the  sights,  keep  their  eyes 
on  their  work  or  their  knitting,  so  that  they  seem  to 
see  next  to  nothing  of  what  is  going  on. 

In  the  mean  time  those  who  are  really  awake  to  the 
sights  and  sounds  which  the  procession  of  the  months 
offers  them  find  endless  entertainment  and  instruction. 
There  are  three  classes  of  lookers-on  at  the  show  of 
Nature  who  may  be  distinguished  from  each  other. 
The  first  set  includes  the  patient  statisticians  who  ad 
dict  themselves  to  particular  series  of  facts,  such  as 
those  relating  to  temperature,  to  the  course  of  storms, 
and  other  specific  objects  of  study.  They  give  us  in 
finite  unreadable  tables,  out  of  which  are  extracted  cer 
tain  average  results,  which  we  are  all  willing  to  make 
use  of.  The  second  consists  of  the  natural  observers, 
such  people  as  White  of  Selborne,  who  love  to  wan 
der  in  the  fields  and  pick  up  all  the  interesting  facts 
that  come  in  their  way,  about  swallows  and  moles, 
about  bats  and  crickets  and  ancient  tortoises,  and  big 
trees  and  early  flowers  and  tall  spikes  of  wheat  or 
barley,  and  wonderful  overflows  and  high  winds ; 
charming  people,  a  little  miscellaneous  in  their  gath 
erings,  but  with  eyes  in  their  fingers,  so  that  they  spy 
out  everything  curious,  and  get  hold  of  it  as  a  magnet 
picks  out  iron  filings.  The  third  class  contains  the 
poets,  who  look  at  things  mainly  for  their  beauty  or 
their  symbolic  uses. 


134       PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

Everybody  studies  nature  with  the  poets.  Many 
take  delight  in  the  discursive  observations  of  the  ram 
bling  naturalist.  A  few  interest  themselves  in  the 
series  of  facts  accumulated  by  the  systematic  observer. 
Read  Wordsworth's  or  Bryant's  poems,  and  you  see 
how  incidentally,  economically,  and  fastidiously,  yet 
how  suggestively,  and  with  what  exquisite  effect,  they 
use  the  facts  of  observation.  Read  Miss  Cooper's 
"  Rural  Hours,"  and  you  will  get  some  hint  of  how 
full  every  walk  in  the  country  is  of  moving  and  still 
life,  always  changing  its  aspect,  and  always  full  of  new 
delights  when  the  eyes  have  once  been  opened.  Pon 
der  the  meteorological  record  of  Dr.  Holyoke,  or  the 
tables  of  M.  Quetelet,  and  you  will  learn  to  wonder 
at  the  patience  which  can  accumulate  so  many  facts, 
each  almost  without  interest  by  itself,  but  forming 
collectively  the  ground  of  conclusions  which  all  are 
glad  to  accept,  after  they  have  been  painfully  elimi 
nated  by  others.  We  must  avail  ourselves  of  the 
librettos  of  each  of  these  three  classes  of  observers, 
in  following  the  performance  from  the  first  note  of 
Spring  to  the  last  closing  scene  of  Winter. 

January  is  our  coldest  month  (average  25°.59),  and 
the  other  months  follow  in  this  order:  February 
(27.75),  December  (30.29),  March  (35.38),  Novem 
ber  (39.96),  April  (46.02),  October  (51.34),  May 
(56.84),  September  (62.96),  June  (67.19),  August 
(70.53),  July  (72.49). 

Dr.  Holyoke's  tables,  from  which  these  figures  are 
taken,  show  the  mean  annual  temperature  of  forty- 
three  years  at  Salem  to  have  been  47°.09.  The  great 
est  heat  was  101° ;  the  greatest  cold,  —13°.  They 
afford  no  evidence  of  any  increasing  warmth  of  the 
seasons,  or  any  earlier  opening  of  the  spring. 


THE   SEASONS.  135 

A  warm  day  in  December  is  a  memory  of  October ; 
a  warm  day  in  February  is  a  dream  of  April.  Their 
character  is  unmistakable ;  we  cannot  help  going 
back  in  imagination  with  the  one,  and  forward  with 
the  other. 

On  the  14th  of  February  the  windows  fill  with  pic 
tures  for  the  most  part  odious,  and  meant  for  some 
nondescript  class  of  males  and  females,  their  allusions 
having  reference  to  Saint  Valentine's  day,  the  legend 
ary  pairing  time  of  the  birds.  The  festival  is  a  sad 
mockery,  for  there  are  no  spring  birds  here  to  pair, 
but  it  reminds  us  that  there  is  a  good  time  coming. 
In  a  fortnight  more  March  is  upon  us,  with  the  roar 
of  a  lion  very  likely,  for  it  is  a  windy,  ill-tempered 
month.  We  say  that  spring  has  begun.  So  it  has, 
according  to  our  common  reckoning,  but  the  true  as 
tronomical  spring  does  not  begin  until  the  21st  of 
March,  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox. 

This  seems  the  place  to  speak  of  the  course  of  the 
sun,  as  we  see  it,  here  in  Boston,  for  instance.  We 
learn  from  our  books  that  the  sun  passes  through  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  from  the  Ram  to  the  Fishes, 
in  the  course  of  every  year.  But  I  appeal  to  you, 
candid  and  courageous  reader,  if  we  know  anything 
of  the  kind  from  the  evidence  of  our  own  senses,  — 
whether  we  ever  saw  the  God  of  Day  in  his  alleged 
proximity  to  the  Virgin,  or  in  the  (perhaps)  more 
dangerous  neighborhood  of  the  Scorpion.  How  can 
we  see  the  constellations  while  the  sun  is  shining,  I 
should  like  to  know? 

All  I  can  say  of  my  own  knowledge  is,  that  near 
the  end  of  December  the  sun  is  very  low  in  the  south 
at  noon,  and  that  he  sets  behind  the  hills  of  Brook- 
line  ;  that  he  gets  higher  and  higher,  and  by  and  by 


136       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

sets  behind  Brighton,  and  then  behind  Cambridge, 
and  near  the  end  of  June  behind  the  hills  north  of 
Cambridge.  I  have  no  doubt  the  rising  of  the  sun  is 
adjusted  to  match  his  setting,  but  I  do  not  assist  at 
that  ceremony  so  often  as  at  the  other. 

Now  when  the  sun  sets  farthest  to  the  south  behind 
the  Brookline  hills,  about  the  22d  of  December,  he 
pauses  before  he  turns  to  go  northward,  and  this  is 
called  the  winter  solstice,  or  sun-halt.  Then  the  day 
is  shortest,  and  here  winter  begins.  When  the  sun 
has  got  so  far  north  that  he  sets  behind  the  hills  nortli 
of  Cambridge,  which  is  on  the  21st  of  June,  here 
again  he  pauses.  This  is  the  summer  solstice,  or  sun- 
halt.  The  day  is  longest  now,  and  the  summer  begins 
here.  But  on  the  21st  of  March,  midway  between 
these  two  sun-halts,  the  day  and  night  are  of  equal 
lengths  (vernal  equinox),  and  on  the  22d  of  Septem 
ber  again  day  and  night  are  equal  (autumnal  equi 
nox).  So  that  the  true  astronomical  spring  in  this 
climate  does  not  begin  until  the  21st  of  March,  sum 
mer  the  21st  of  June,  autumn  the  22d  of  September, 
winter  the  22d  of  December. 

It  is  not  so  very  strange,  then,  that  the  good  people 
living  down  in  the  District  of  Maine,  as  we  used  to 
call  it,  should  talk  aboiit  having  six  weeks'  sleighing 
in  March.  I  once  had  the  pleasure  of  going  from  Au 
gusta  to  Bangor  in  an  open  sleigh  in  one  of  their 
Marches,  and  thought  I  saw  more  snow  than  I  had 
ever  seen  in  all  my  life  before.  And  I  then  noticed, 
\vli:it  I  never  have  heard  mentioned,  that  the  Maine 
snow  had  a  faint  bluish  or  greenish  tinge,  as  if  it  was 
thinking  of  turning  into  a  glacier,  or  rather  a  great 
mrr  (If  <//""•  We  in  Massachusetts  do  not  expect 
more  than  a  month's  ^Ici^hing  in  March,  -  in  fact  n«>t 


THE   SEASONS.  137 

so  much  as  that ;  but  I  think  I  remember  hearing  old 
Salem  folks  talk  of  a  great  snow-storm  in  a  certain 
April  many  years  ago,  when  two  of  their  famous  In 
dia-men  were  wrecked  off  Cape  Cod.  If  I  am  mis 
taken,  some  of  their  centenarians  will  correct  me. 

The  last  we  see  of  snow  is,  in  the  language  of  a 
native  poet, 

"  The  lingering  drift  behind  the  shady  wall." 

This  is  from  a  bard  more  celebrated  once  than  now, 
Timothy  Dwight,  the  same  from  whom  we  borrowed 
the  piece  we  used  to  speak,  beginning  (as  we  said  it), 

"  Columby,  Columby,  to  glory  arise  ! " 

The  line  with  the  drift  in  it  has  stuck  in  my  memory 
like  a  feather  in  an  old  nest,  and  is  all  that  remains  to 
me  of  his  "  Greenfield  Hill." 

When  there  is  nothing  left  of  the  winter  snow  but 
these  ridges  behind  the  stone  walls,  and  a  dingy  drift 
here  and  there  in  a  hollow,  or  in  the  woods,  Winter 
has  virtually  resigned  the  icicle  which  is  his  sceptre. 
It  only  remains  to  break  the  seals  which  are  the  war 
rants  of  his  hitherto  undisputed  reign.  Of  these  the 
broadest  and  most  important,  in  our  region,  is  the 
frozen  sheet  that  covers  the  Hudson  River. 

The  worthy  burghers  of  Albany  take  such  interest 
in  the  arrival  of  the  first  boat  of  the  season,  that  we 
find  exact  records  of  the  day  which  marked  this  evi 
dence  of  the  opening  of  the  river  recorded  for  many 
years,  like  the  first  sight  o'f  land  in  a  sailor's  log-book. 
Before  Mr.  Fulton's  vapor-boats  began  running,  there 
were  still  records  kept,  more  or  less  complete,  so  that 
the  table  before  me  goes  back  to  1786.  It  appears 
from  the  accounts  of  forty-seven  seasons,  that  the  Hud- 


138       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

son  opened  oftenest  in  March,  about  the  19th  on  the 
average ;  on  the  15th  of  March,  no  less  than  five  times. 
But  nine  times  it  opened  in  February,  and  seven  times 
so  late  as  April.  In  1842  it  opened  on  the  4th  of 
February ;  and  the  next  year,  as  if  to  show  the  im 
partiality  of  Nature,  not  until  the  13th  of  April. 
These  were  the  earliest  and  latest  periods  in  the  time 
over  which  the  record  extends. 

The  opening  of  the  Kennebec  has  been  noted  dur 
ing  most  of  the  seasons  from  1785  to  1857.  Its  mean 
date  was  April  6th ;  earliest,  March  15th ;  latest, 
April  24th. 

In  the  mean  time,  while  the  inhabitants  of  Albany 
and  Augusta  are  listening  for  the  cracking  and  grind 
ing  of  the  breaking  ice  in  their  rivers,  the  Bostonians 
are  looking  out  for  the  crocuses  and  the  snow-drops  in 
the  Beacon  Street  front-yards.  Boston  is  said  to  be 
in  latitude  42°  and  something  more,  but  Beacon 
Street  is  practically  not  higher  than  40°,  on  account 
of  its  fine  southern  exposure.  Not  long  after  the 
pretty  show  of  the  crocuses  has  made  the  borders  look 
gay  behind  the  iron  fences,  a  faint  suspicion  arises-  in 
the  mind  of  the  interested  spectator  that  the  brown 
grass  on  the  banks  of  the  Common  and  the  terraces  of 
the  State-House  is  getting  a  little  greenish.  The 
change  shows  first  in  the  creases  and  on  the  slopes, 
and  one  hardly  knows  whether  it  is  fancy  or  not. 
There  is  also  a  spotty  look  about  some  of  the  naked 
trees  that  we  had  not  noticed  before,  —  yes,  the  buds 
are  swelling.  The  breaking  up  of  the  ice  on  the  Frog 
Pond  ought  to  have  been  as  carefully  noted  as  that  of 
the  Hudson  and  Kennebec,  but  it  seems  to  have  been 
neglected  by  local  observers.  If  anybody  would  take 
the  trouble  to  keep  a  record  of  the  leafing  and  flower- 


Boston  Common 


THE   SEASONS.  139 

ing  of  the  trees  on  the  Common,  of  the  first  coming  of 
birds,  of  the  day  when  the  first  schooner  passes  West 
Boston  Bridge,  it  would  add  a  great  deal  to  the  pleas 
ure  of  our  spring  walks  through  the  malls,  and  out  to 
the  learned  city  beyond  the  river,  because  dull  isolated 
facts  become  interesting  by  comparison.  But  one 
must  go  to  the  country  to  find  people  who  care  enough 
about  these  matters,  and  who  are  constantly  enough  in 
the  midst  of  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  opening  year 
to  take  cognizance  of  the  order  of  that  grand  proces 
sion,  with  March  blowing  his  trumpet  at  the  head  of 
it,  and  April  following  with  her  green  flag,  and  the 
rest  coming  in  their  turn,  till  February  brings  up  the 
rear  with  his  white  banner. 

What  are  the  first  flowers  of  the  spring  ?  Mr.  Hig- 
ginson,  whose  charming  article,  "  April  Days,"  in  the 
"  Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  April,  1861,  is  full  of  fresh 
observations,  claims  that  honor  for  the  Epigcea  repens 
(May-flower,  or  trailing  arbutus)  and  the  Hepatica 
triloba  (liverwort,  or  blue  anemone).  He  has  found 
the  last  as  early  as  the  17th  of  April,  and  the  other 
appears  at  about  the  same  time.  But  they  have  a  less 
lovely  rival  in  the  field.  "  Towards  the  close  of  Feb 
ruary  or  beginning  of  March  the  skunk-cabbage  makes 
a  good  guess  at  the  time  of  the  year,  and  comes  up  in 
marshy  spots,  on  the  banks  of  ponds  and  streams." 
Miss  Cooper  tells  us  this,  and  speaks  of  it  as  the  first 
plant  to  feel  the  influence  of  the  changing  season. 
The  flower  comes  before  the  leaf,  but  it  opens  slowly. 
The  little  chickweed  also,  which  flowered  in  Rochester 
on  the  21st  of  March,  puts  in  its  claim.  Near  the  end 
of  this  month,  the  alders  throw  out  their  tassels  of 
purple  and  gold,  which  are  soon  followed  by  the  crimson 
corymbs  of  the  soft  maple,  the  small  brown  flowers  of 


140       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME  OF    LIFE. 

the  elms,  and  the  yellow  plumes  of  the  willows.  "\Vlio 
does  not  love  to  make  a  willow  whistle,  or  to  see  one 
made  ?  Can  you  not  recall  your  first  lesson  in  the  art, 
—  the  cutting  of  the  flexible  bough,  the  choosing  a 
smooth  part,  passing  the  knife  around  it,  above  and 
below,  pounding  it  judiciously,  wringing  it  earnestly, 
and  feeling  the  hollow  cylinder  of  bark  at  last  slipping 
on  the  sappy,  ivory-white,  fragrant  wood  ?  That  little 
plaything  grew,  with  the  growth  of  art  and  civilization, 
to  be  the  great  organ  which  thunders  at  Harlaem  or  in 
Boston.  Respect  the  willow  whistle.  And  near  the 
willows,  in  the  boggy,  low  ground,  the  sweet  calamus 
used  to  wave  its  green  blades  in  the  wind.  What  boy 
does  not  remember  fiagroot^  with  its  biting  aroma, 
and  the  marrowy  base  of  the  leaf,  red  shading  into 
white,  like  the  beak  of  a  Java  sparrow?  These  are 
the  smells  and  tastes  and  sights  that  bring  back  boy 
hood  ! 

It  was  hardly  fair  in  me  to  trouble  so  busy  a  man  as 
my  honored  friend,  President  Hill,  of  Harvard  College, 
for  his  experience  in  the  woods  and  meadows.  But  I 
knew  him  to  be  so  acute  and  enthusiastic  an  observer 
of  nature,  that  I  should  be  sure  to  be  richly  repaid  for 
my  aggression,  if  he  could  find  a  brief  interval  from 
grave  duties  to  answer  my  questions.  He  sent  me,  in 
reply,  a  letter  full  of  interest,  with  a  poem  written  by 
himself  long  years  ago,  a  reminiscence  of  his  New  Jer 
sey  birthplace.  The  reader  must  forgive  me  for  not 
finding  room  for  every  word  of  his  communication, 
from  which  I  am  happy  to  offer  him  the  following  ex 
tracts: — 

"The  earliest  wild-flower  that  I  remember  is  the 
witch-hazel,  blooming  at  any  time  from  October  to 
March,  when  the  weather  is  mild  ;  at  least  I  have  seen 


THE   SEASONS.  141 

it  near  Newton  Centre  blossoming  as  late  as  February, 
sending  through  me  a  strange  thrill  of  pleasure,  and 
yet  making  me  doubt  whether  to  consider  the  mild 
February  day  a  part  of  a  late  autumn  or  of  an  early 
spring.  All  the  flower-buds,  however,  give  a  close  ob 
server  somewhat  of  the  same  feeling.  Nihtt  per  sal- 
turn.  I  dare  say  that  you  may  see  on  your  Boston 
lindens,  what  I  have  often  noticed  on  Cambridge  elms, 
that  the  flower-buds  gradually  increase  in  size  from  the 
moment  that  they  appear  in  the  axils  of  the  midsum 
mer  leaf,  until  they  burst  open  to  the  delight  of  men 
and  birds  the  next  April. 

"  I  should  put  next  to  the  witch-hazel,  if  my  mem 
ory  is  right,  a  beautiful  plant,  which,  however,  resents 
ill  treatment  and  defends  itself  when  attacked  so  suc 
cessfully  that  it  is  usually  let  severely  alone,  and  as 
sailed  from  a  distance  with  ill  names.  But  the  Sym- 
plocarpus  has  no  '  alliaceous '  nor  *  mephitic '  odor,  if 
it  is  not  bruised,  and  its  purple  spathes  in  early  March 
are  very  pleasant  to  my  eye.  I  always  bring  a  few 
home  ;  the  odor  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  that  of 
the  root  of  the  Crown  Imperial,  and  this  is  admitted 
even  in  Beacon  Street. 

"  I  begin  after  the  skunk-cabbage  to  hesitate.  Lo 
calities  differ ;  here  one  plant  has  the  sunny  side  of  the 
rock  or  the  pine  grove,  and  there  another.  Even  in 
dividuals  of  the  same  species  may  differ  in  their  for 
wardness.  Besides  that,  as  we  come  towards  May,  the 
number  of  flowers  increases  so  fast  that  there  must  of 
necessity  be  many  whose  time  of  bloom  is  on  the  aver 
age  the  same.  I  have  just  counted  on  my  fingers  forty 
species  of  very  common  wild-flowers  that  come  into 
bloom  usually  in  the  month  of  May,  and  probably 
could  count  up  with  a  little  more  reflection  fifty  or 


142          PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

sixty,  without  reckoning  mosses  or  grasses,  or  going 
out  of  the  list  of  familiar  wild  plants  near  Boston. 
The  hazel  and  alder,  with  their  tassels  and  their  little 
glowing  specks  of  red  fire,  I  think,  however,  usually 
catch  my  eye  next  after  the  skunk-cabbage  ;  the  cat 
kins  are  of  full  size,  though  not  open,  even  in  winter. 
Then  comes  the  hepatica,  from  the  river's  bank  near 
Mount  Auburn  ;  the  saxifrage,  on  the  edge  of  rocks ; 
and  a  little  early  buttercup  on  rocky  hills,  and  equally 
bright  yellow  marsh-marigolds  by  the  outlet  of  springs ; 
the  elm  and  the  maple  give  by  their  blossoms  an  inef 
fable  softness  to  the  appearance  of  the  forests ;  the 
wood  anemone  (beautiful,  but  not  so  much  so  as  the  rue- 
leaved  anemone,  which  comes  later),  the  red  columbine, 
wild  violets,  bloodroot,  shad-flowers,  and  I  cannot  re 
member  what,  crowd  along,  and  May  is  here  with  its 
loveliness,  and  its  music,  (and  its  terrible  east  winds.) 

u  FROM  «  THE  MILE  RUN  THIRTY  YEARS  Aoo.' 

"  First  came,  after  the  snow,  early  hepaticas, 
Pale  blue,  shrinking  from  sight;  then  the  Claytonia, 
Bright  spring  beauty;  and  red,  honey-horned  columbines; 
Soon  sprang,  tender  and  frail,  quaint  little  breeches-plant; 
With  these,  fairest  of  all,  rue-leaved  anemones. 

44  Hillsides  bordering  the  brook  glowed  with  the  beautiful 
May  Phlox ;  while  at  the  foot,  under  the  alders,  grew 
Dog-toothed  violets,  called  otherwise  adder's-tongue." 

As  early  as  the  first  of  March  ground  squirrels  peep 
out  of  their  holes,  and  bluebirds  have  sometimes  also 
shown  themselves.  Robins  make  their  appearance  all 
the  way  from  the  first  week  in  March  to  the  first  week 
in  April.  But  some  of  them  linger  with  us  on  winter 
half-pay  through  the  cold  season.  Sparrows,  black 
birds,  ground-birds,  **  plwebe-birds,"  wild  pigeons,  drop 


THE   SEASONS.  143 

in  during  the  month.  A  few  flies,  a  grasshopper,  a 
butterfly,  a  snake,  a  turtle,  may  be  met  with. 

A  flock  of  wild  geese  wedging  their  way  northward, 
with  strange  far-off  clamor,  are  the  heralds  of  April. 
In  another  week  the  frogs  begin  piping.  Toads  and 
tree-toads,  martins  and  swallows,  straggle  along  in 
through  this  month,  or  first  make  themselves  seen  or 
heard  in  May. 

The  dandelions  come  into  bloom  with  the  arrival  of 
the  swallows.  So  says  Mr.  John  Burroughs,  a  good 
observer,  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly ;  "  so  it  is  in  Bel 
gium,  according  to  M.  Forster's  table  in  one  of  Quete- 
let's  Reports. 

The  daffodils,  which  in  England 

"  Come  before  tfie  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty," 

blossomed  at  different  places  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
in  1849,  from  April  5th  to  May  21st.  Violets  were 
in  bloom  in  Albany  as  early  as  the  3d  of  April,  but 
they  are  not  commonly  seen  until  later  in  the  month. 
Mrs.  Kemble  flung  some  American  violets  from  her 
because  they  were  without  fragrance.  I  remember 
treating  the  European  white  water-lily,  which  I  found 
scentless,  with  similar  disrespect. 

The  flowers  are  opening  fast  in  the  last  part  of 
April.  Before  May-day  Mr.  Higginson  has  found 
bloodroot,  cowslip,  Houstonia,  saxifrage,  dandelion, 
chickweed,  cinquefoil,  strawberry,  mouse-ear,  bellwort, 
dog's-tooth  violet,  five  species  of  violet  proper,  to  say 
nothing  of  some  rarer  plants  than  these.  The  leaves 
are  springing  bright  green  upon  the  currant-bushes ; 
dark,  almost  livid,  upon  the  lilac ;  the  grass  is  grow 
ing  apace,  the  plants  are  coming  up  in  the  garden  beds, 


144        PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

and  the  children  are  thinking  of  May-day,  which  will 
be  upon  them  presently,  as  shrill  as  a  step-mother,  and 
make  them  shiver  and  shake  in  the  raw  wind,  until 
their  lips  are  as  livid  as  the  opening  lilac-leaves. 

The  birds  come  pouring  in  with  May.  Wrens, 
brown  thrushes,  the  various  kinds  of  swallows,  orioles, 
cat-birds,  golden  robins,  bobolinks,  whippoorwills, 
cuckoos,  yellow-birds,  humming-birds,  are  busy  in  es 
tablishing  their  new  households.  The  old  verse  runs, 

"  In  May  they  lay, 
In  June  they  tune, 
In  July  they  fly." 

The  bumblebee  comes  in  with  his  "mellow,  breezy 
bass,"  to  swell  the  song  of  the  busy  minstrels. 

May  is  the  flowering  month  of  the  orchard.  As  the 
warmth  flows  northward  like  a  great  wave,  it  covers 
the  land  with  an  ever-spreading  flood  of  pink  and  white 
blossoms,  —  the  flowers  of  the  peach,  the  cherry,  the 
apple,  and  other  fruit-trees. 

Fifty  years  ago,  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow,  whose  recent 
essay,  "  Modern  Inquiries,"  has  shown  the  active  inter 
est  he  takes  in  one  of  the  leading  questions  of  to-day, 
published  a  paper  in  the  Transactions  of  the  American 
Academy,  which  was  the  first  attempt,  so  far  as  I 
know,  at  least  in  this  country,  to  compare  the  seasons 
by  the  flowering  of  plants.  The  progress  of  the  wave 
of  warm  air  is  accurately  recorded  for  the  spring  of 
1817  by  the  flowering  of  the  peach.  These  are  some 
of  the  dates,  as  he  received  them  from  his  correspond 
ents.  Charleston,  March  6-12 ;  Richmond,  March 
23- April  6 ;  Baltimore,  April  9  ;  Philadelphia,  April 
15;  New  York,  April  21-26;  Boston,  May  9;  Al 
bany,  May  12 ;  Montreal,  May  12.  The  peach  was 
in  bloom  at  Valencia,  in  Spain,  about  the  19th  of 


THE   SEASONS. 


145 


March ;  at  Geneva,  in  Switzerland,  on  the  1st  of  April. 
The  apple  flowered  ten  days  earlier  near  London  (May 
8th)  than  in  Boston  (May  18th). 

The  late  Mr.  John  Lowell  has  given  some  results  of 
his  observations  on  the  blooming  of  fruit-trees  at  Rox- 
bury,  Mass.,  for  a  series  of  years,  as  follows :  — 


Peach,  Average  for  14  years,  May  2 

Cherry,  Average        19  years,  May  4 

Apple,  Average        17  years,  May  16 


Extremes,  April  1C,  May  12. 
Extremes,  April  21,  May  17. 
Extremes,,  May  6,  May  27. 


The  average  blooming  of  the  apple  in  Mansfield, 
Mass.,  for  forty  years,  was  as  here  given :  — 

First  ten  years,  May  21st ;  second  ten  years,  May 
23d ;  third  ten  years,  May  20th  ;  fourth  ten  years, 
May  20th.  Earliest,  May  9th.  Latest,  June  2d.  May 
1st  is  the  earliest  period  I  have  seen  noted  in  New 
England  (Fayetteville,  Vt.,  1830). 

On  the  23d  of  May,  1864,  the  day  on  which  Haw 
thorne  was  buried,  the  apple-trees  were  in  full  bloom 
in  Concord,  as  if  Nature  had  lavished  all  her  wealth  of 
flowers  to  do  honor  to  one  who  had  loved  her  so  well. 

And  now,  to  finish  this  group  of  figures,  here  is  a 
table  of  the  flowering  of  several  common  plants  and 
trees  in  different  years,  on  Hospital  Hill,  Worcester, 
Mass. 


1839. 

1840. 

1841. 

1842. 

1843 

1844. 

1845. 

1846. 

Crocus  . 

Apr.    8 

Apr.    1 

Apr.    7 

Apr.  15 

Apr.  12 

Apr.    9 

Blood  root 

Apr.  18 

Apr.  19  May    8 

- 

May    3 

_ 

Apr.  25 

Apr.  12 

Cherry  . 
Peach    . 
Apple    . 

Apr.  28 
May    5 
May  10 

Apr.  25  May  15 
May    1  May  19 
May  11  May  24 

Apr.  24 
Apr.  22 

May    9 
May  12 
May  14 

Apr.  21 
Apr.  24 
May    2 

Apr.  28 
May    1 
May    8 

Apr.  24 
Apr.  25 
May    4 

Lilac      . 

May  Iti 

May  1C.  May  27 

— 

May  24 

May    4 

May  15 

May    8 

Dandelion 

Apr.  23 

Apr.  23  May    1  Apr.  16 

May    9 

Apr.  23 

Apr.  23 

Apr.  19 

Horsechestnut 

May  20 

" 

~ 

~ 

May  21 

~ 

May  15 

~ 

I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  the  lilacs  were 
not  in  blow  on  Election-day,  —  the  last  Wednesday  in 


140        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

May.  This  year  they  were  in  their  full  glory  on  that 
clay,  the  29th.  A  bunch  of  "  laylocks  "  and  a  'lection 
bun  used  to  make  us  happy  in  old  times ;  but  'lection- 
days  are  over,  and  we  have  no  festival  of  the  lilacs, 
which  the  old  anniversary  was,  without  knowing  it. 
"  Artillery  Election,"  with  its  languid  pageantry  and 
its  sermon  obligate,  is  not  to  be  counted.  No  more 
buns  (at  least  with  the  old  taste  in  them)  ;  no  more 
"•  black  joke,"  the  "  Aunt  Sally  "  of  the  eocene  period ; 
no  more  egg-pop,  made  with  eggs  that  would  have 
been  fighting  cocks,  to  judge  by  the  pugnacity  the  bev 
erage  containing  their  yolks  developed,  —  the  Frog 
Pond  was  said  to  furnish  the  water,  and  it  smelt  strong 
of  the  Medford  still ;  no  more  rings,  and  rough-and- 
tumble  contests ;  no  more  of  that  strange  aroma,  — 
gunpowdery,  rummy,  with  stray  whiffs  of  peppermint 
and  checkerberry  from  candy-stalls,  and  ever  and  anon 
the  redeeming  fragrance  from  vast  bunches  of  the 
ever-abounding  lilacs,  —  which  one  of  our  true  poets, 
Dr.  T.  W.  Parsons,  once  skilfully  analyzed  ;  —  noth 
ing  left  but  the  4th  of  July,  dull  and  decent,  without 
even  China  crackers. 

The  roses  are  getting  ready  to  light  up  the  glorious 
summer  which  is  close  upon  us,  and  the  yellow-birds 
have  been  flashing  about  for  the  last  week  and  more ; 
and  a  few  days  ago,  as  if  to  remind  us  that  even  at  the 
sweetest  season  our  earth  is  no  longer  paradise,  a  mos 
quito  blew  his  little  horn,  and  stabbed  one  of  us  with 
his  poisoned  dagger.  To-morrow  June  will  be  here. 

As  you  have  been  pleased  to  follow  me  for  a  whole 
season,  gentle  reader,  perhaps  you  will  indulge  me  in 
a  fragment  of  personal  history,  which  may  carry  some 
thing  not  unpleasing  in  its  trivialities.  One  cannot 
gather  some  of  the  best  fruits  of  life  without  climbing 


THE  SEASONS.  147 

out  to  the  end  of  the  slender  branches  of  the  Ego.  Of 
course  there  are  those  who  pull  up  when  they  come  to 
a  great  I,  as  a  donkey  stops  at  a  post,  —  what  then  ? 
What  have  we  better  worth  telling  than  our  personal 
impressions  of  the  great  show  at  which  we  have  been 
looking  ever  so  many  years?  Besides,  it  is  not  the 
personal  pronoun  that  is  the  essence  of  egotism ;  no 
body  gets  rid  of  himself,  —  did  not  Professor  P.  tell 
me  that  there  was  a  character  of  individual  minds  in 
mathematical  works,  so  that  Poisson's  "  The'orie  du 
Calcul  des  Prcbabilite"s  "  had  a  distinct  Poissonish,  or 
fishy  flavor  running  through  the  whole  of  it  ? 

What  I  wish  to  tell  you  is  how  I  reconstructed  one 
of  my  early  visions  which  had  dissolved  utterly  away, 
and  an  incident  or  two  connected  therewith. 

How  long  ago  was  it,  —  Consule  Jacobo  Monrovio, 
—  nay,  even  more  desperate  than  that,  Consule  Ja 
cobo  Madisonio,  —  that  I  used  to  stray  along  the 
gravel  walks  of  THE  GARDEN  ?  It  was  a  stately  pleas 
ure-place  to  me  in  those  days.  Since  then  my  pupils 
have  been  stretched,  like  old  India-rubber  rings  which 
have  been  used  to  hold  one's  female  correspondence. 
It  turns  out,  by  adult  measurement,  to  be  an  oblong 
square  of  moderate  dimensions,  say  a  hundred  by  two 
hundred  feet.  There  were  old  lilac-bushes  at  the  right 
of  the  entrance,  and  in  the  corner  at  the  left  that  re 
markable  moral  pear-tree,  which  gave  me  one  of  my 
first  lessons  in  life.  Its  fruit  never  ripened,  but  al 
ways  rotted  at  the  core  just  before  it  began  to  grow 
mellow.  It  was  a  vulgar  plebeian  specimen  at  best, 
and  was  set  there  no  doubt  only  to  preach  its  annual 
sermon,  a  sort  of  "  Dudleian  Lecture  "  by  a  country 
preacher  of  small  parts.  But  in  the  northern  border 
was  a  high-bred  Saint  Michael  pear-tree,  which  taught 


148        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

a  lesson  that  all  of  gentle  blood  might  take  to  heart ; 
for  its  fruit  used  to  get  hard  and  dark,  and  break  into 
unseemly  cracks,  so  that  when  the  lord  of  the  harvest 
came  for  it,  it  was  like  those  rich  men's  sons  we  see 
too  often,  who  have  never  ripened,  but  cnly  rusted, 
hardened,  and  shrunken.  We  had  peaches,  lovely 
nectarines,  and  sweet  white  grapes,  growing  and  com 
ing  to  kindly  maturity  in  those  days ;  we  should  hardly 
expect  them  now,  and  yet  there  is  no  obvious  change 
of  climate.  As  for  the  garden-beds,  they  were  cared 
for  by  the  Jonathan  or  Ephraim  of  the  household, 
sometimes  assisted  by  one  Rule,  a  little  old  Scotch 
gardener  with  a  stippled  face  and  a  lively  temper. 
Nothing  but  old-fashioned  flowers  in  them,  —  hya 
cinths,  pushing  their  green  beaks  through  as  soon  as 
the  snow  was  gone,  or  earlier ;  tulips,  coming  up  in 
the  shape  of  sugar  "  cockles,"  or  eornucopiae,  —  one 
was  almost  tempted  to  look  to  see  whether  nature  had 
not  packed  one  of  those  two-line  "  sentiments  "  we  re 
member  so  well  in  each  of  them ;  peonies,  butting 
their  way  bluntly  through  the  loosened  earth ;  flower- 
de-luces  (so  I  will  call  them,  not  otherwise)  ;  lilies ; 
roses,  damask,  white,  blush,  cinnamon  (these  names 
served  us  then)  ;  larkspurs,  lupins,  and  gorgeous  hol 
lyhocks.  With  these  upper-class  plants  were  blended, 
in  republican  fellowship,  the  useful  vegetables  of  the 
working  sort,  —  beets,  handsome  with  dark  red  leaves ; 
carrots,  with  their  elegant  filigree  foliage;  parsnips 
that  cling  to  the  earth  like  mandrakes ;  radishes,  il 
lustrations  of  total  depravity,  a  prey  to  every  evil  un 
derground  emissary  of  the  powers  of  darkness  ;  onions, 
never  easy  until  they  are  out  of  bed,  so  to  speak,  a 
communicative  and  companionable  vein 'table,  with  a 
real  genius  for  soups ;  squash-vines  with  their  gener- 


THE   SEASONS.  149 

ous  fruits,  the  winter  ones  that  will  hang  up  "  agin  the 
chimbly"  by  and  by,  the  summer  ones,  vase-like,  as 
Hawthorne  described  them,  with  skins  so  white  and 
delicate,  when  they  are  yet  new-born,  that  one  thinks 
of  little  sucking  pigs  turned  vegetables,  like  Daphne 
into  a  laurel,  and  then  of  tender  human  infancy,  which 
Charles  Lamb's  favorite  so  calls  to  mind ;  —  these, 
with  melons,  promising  as  "  first  scholars,"  but  apt  to 
put  off  ripening  until  the  frost  came  and  blasted  their 
vines  and  leaves,  as  if  it  had  been  a  shower  of  boil 
ing  water,  were  among  the  customary  growths  of  The 
Garden. 

But  Consuls  Madisonius  and  Monrovius  left  the 
seat  of  office,  and  Consuls  Johannes  Quincius,  and 
Andreas,  and  Martinus,  and  the  rest,  followed  in  their 
turn,  until  the  good  Abraham  sat  in  the  curule  chair. 
In  the  mean  time  changes  had  been  going  on  under 
our  old  gambrel  roof,  and  The  Garden  had  been  suf 
fered  to  relapse  slowly  into  a  state  of  wild  nature.  The 
haughty  flower-de-luces,  the  curled  hyacinths,  the  per 
fumed  roses,  had  yielded  their  place  to  suckers  from 
locust-trees,  to  milkweed,  burdock,  plantain,  sorrel, 
purslane  ;  the  gravel  walks,  which  were  to  Nature  as 
rents  in  her  green  garment,  had  been  gradually  darned 
over  with  the  million-threaded  needles  of  her  grasses, 
until  nothing  was  left  to  show  that  a  garden  had  been 
there. 

But  The  Garden  still  existed  in  my  memory ;  the 
walks  were  all  mapped  out  there,  and  the  place  of 
every  herb  and  flower  was  laid  down  as  if  on  a  chart. 

By  that  pattern  I  reconstructed  The  Garden,  lost 
for  a  whole  generation  as  much  as  Pompeii  was  lost, 
and  in  the  consulate  of  our  good  Abraham  it  was  once 
more  as  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  my  childhood.  It 


150        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

was  not  much  to  look  upon  for  a  stranger ;  but  when 
the  flowers  came  up  in  their  old  places,  the  effect  on 
me  was  something  like  what  the  widow  of  Nain  may 
have  felt  when  her  dead  son  rose  on  his  bier  and 
smiled  upon  her. 

Nature  behaved  admirably,  and  sent  me  back  all 
the  little  tokens  of  her  affection  she  had  kept  so  long. 
The  same  delegates  from  the  underground  fauna  ate 
up  my  early  radishes ;  I  think  I  should  have  been  dis 
appointed  if  they  had  not.  The  same  buff-colored 
bugs  devoured  my  roses  tliat  I  remembered  of  old. 
The  aphis  and  the  caterpillar  and  the  squash-bug  were 
cordial  as  ever,  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened  to 
produce  a  coolness  or  entire  forgetfulness  between  us. 
But  the  butterflies  came  back  too,  and  the  bees  and 
the  birds. 

The  yellow-birds  used  to  be  very  fond  of  some  sun 
flowers  that  grew  close  to  the  pear-tree  with  a  moral. 
I  remember  their  flitting  about,  golden  in  the  golden 
light,  over  the  golden  flowers,  as  if  they  were  flakes  of 
curdled  sunshine.  Let  us  plant  sunflowers,  I  said, 
and  see  whether  the  yellow-birds  will  not  come  back  to 
them.  Sure  enough,  the  sunflowers  had  no  sooner 
spread  their  disks,  and  begun  to  ripen  their  seeds, 
than  the  yellow-birds  were  once  more  twittering  and 
fluttering  about  them.  They  love  these  oily  grains ; 
a  gentleman  who  raises  a  great  many  of  the  plants  for 
the  sake  of  the  seeds  tells  me  his  man  says  he  has  to 
fight  for  them  with  the  yellow-birds. 

SUMMER. 

June  comes  in  with  roses  in  her  hand,  but  very 
often  with  a  thick  shawl  on  her  shoulders,  and  a  bad 
cold  in  her  head.  Fires  are  frequently  needed  in  the 


THE   SEASONS.  151 

first  part  of  the  month.  Our  late  venerated  medical 
patriarch,  who  left  us  with  the  summer  which  has  just 
gone,  used  to  tell  his  patients  who  were  seeking  a 
Southern  climate  for  their  health,  to  "  follow  the 
strawberries  "  northward,  on  their  return.  They  com 
monly  come  with  us,  the  native  ones,  about  the  middle 
of  June,  and  this  year  disappeared  from  the  market 
after  the  12th  of  July.  Earlier  than  the  middle  of 
June  there  is  too  often  reason  to  complain,  as  Willis 
once  did  on  the  10th  of  that  month,  — 

"  The  weathercock  has  rusted  east, 

The  blue  sky  is  forgotten, 

The  earth 's  a  saturated  sponge, 

And  vegetation 's  rotten." 

O  that  east  wind  !  Did  it  ever  blow  from  that  quar 
ter  in  Eden  ?  I  remember  that  often  in  my  boyhood, 
the  morning  of  an  early  summer-day  would  begin  so 
soft  and  balmy  that  I  began  to  think  I  was  in  Para 
dise,  and  that  the  Charles  was  either  Hiddekel  or  Eu 
phrates.  But  in  the  course  of  the  forenoon  a  change 
would  have  come  over  the  air  of  my  Eden.  I  did 
not  know  what  the  matter  was,  but  the  soft  winds  of 
morning  seemed  to  be  chilled  all  through ;  they  pinched 
instead  of  caressing,  and  all  the  sweet  summer  feeling 
seemed  to  have  died  out  of  the  air.  It  was  the  east 
wind,  which  had  sprung  up  in  the  forenoon,  as  it  does 
almost  daily  at  this  season  ;  in  Brookline  one  may  see 
it  before  it  has  reached  him,  stealing  landward  from 
the  edge  of  the  bay,  with  a  thin  blue  mist  as  its  evi 
dence.  The  hot  days  of  July  will  soon  be  here,  and 
then  the  east  wind  will  be  a  grateful  visitor. 

We  have  another  June  dispensation  to  remind  us 
that  we  do  not  live  in  Paradise,  namely,  the  canker- 
worm.  In  October  great  numbers  of  sluggish,  slate- 


152        PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

colored,  wingless  insects,  accompanied  by  a  very  few 
winged  moths,  their  males,  may  be  seen  crawling  up 
the  trunks  of  apple-trees  and  elms.  About  the  middle 
of  March  another  ascent  begins,  this  time  with  a  larger 
proportion  of  males.  These  are  the  fathers  and  moth 
ers  of  the  larvce  we  are  speaking  of,  our  canker-worms. 
Many  contrivances  are  used  to  stop  them,  of  which 
the  best  that  I  have  tried  so  far  is  a  broad  band  of 
roofing-paper  made  glutinous  with  a  cheap  kind  of 
printer's  ink,  sold  for  the  purpose.  Every  one  of  the 
vermin  who  tries  to  cross  it  finds  it  Styx.  But  there 
is  good  evidence  that  the  winged  males  sometimes 
transport  the  females,  as  Orpheus  did  Eurydice, 
across  the  dark  river,  so  that  no  tree  can  be  insured 
against  the  more  enterprising  individuals. 

It  is  Excelsior  always  with  these  little  wretches ; 
they  will  climb  a  lamp-post  if  there  is  nothing  else  to 
climb.  About  the  time  that  the  red  currant  is  in 
blossom,  that  is,  near  the  middle  of  May,  the  clusters 
of  eggs  which  may  have  been  laid  on  the  twigs  of  the 
trees  hatch,  and  send  forth  their  young  like  so  many 
Pandora's  boxes.  But  we  see  little  of  them  until  a 
week  or  two  later,  and  we  never  appreciate  their  full 
horrors  until  about  the  middle  of  June,  when  they 
begin  to  descend,  at  which  time  I  have  seen  ladies 
coming  in  from  Cambridge  (which  breeds  them  in 
great  perfection)  with  their  dresses  festooned  in  living 
patterns  with  them. 

Why  should  I  describe  the  carnival  of  the  canker- 
worms,  making  the  page  crawl  before  you  with  the 
little  green  or  brown  omegas,  of  which  you  have  here 
the  living  portrait,  bunching  up  their  boneless  backs, 
as  drawn  by  Cadmus  &  Co.,  O  Q  ?  They  come  for  » 
series  of  years,  and  then  seem  to  die  out,  but  return 


THE   SEASONS.  153 

after  a  time.  At  the  end  of  May,  1865,  some  of  our 
orchards  had  not  a  single  green  leaf  left.  In  1866 
their  ravages  were  frightful  again  ;  but  this  year, 
1867,  very  few  have  been  seen  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Colleges. 

There  is  sport  to  be  had  in  watching  a  race  between 
a  canker-worm  and  a  common  hairy  tent-caterpillar. 
These  last  always  seem  to  be  in  a  dreadful  hurry. 
(Miss  Rossetti  alludes  to  the  furry  caterpillar's  haste, 
I  remember,  in  one  of  her  poems.)  The  contest  is  of 
the  short,  quick  gait  against  the  long  stride,  the  short 
stroke  against  the  long  pull.  I  have  found  them  so 
evenly  matched,  that  to  see  them  side  by  side  was  like 
looking  at  a  trotting  horse  harnessed  with  a  running 
mate. 

But  now  the  roses  are  coming  into  bloom  ;  the  aza 
lea,  wild  honeysuckle,  is  sweetening  the  roadsides ; 
the  laurels  are  beginning  to  blow  ;  the  white  lilies  are 
getting  ready  to  open ;  the  fireflies  are  seen  now  and 
then,  flitting  across  the  darkness  ;  the  katydids,  the 
grasshoppers,  the  crickets,  make  themselves  heard  ; 
the  bullfrogs  utter  their  tremendous  voices,  and  the 
full  chorus  of  birds  makes  the  air  vocal  with  its  mel 
ody. 

What  is  so  pure,  so  cool,  so  chaste,  so  sweet  as  a 
pond-lily  ?  Few  persons  know  that  we  have  a  water- 
lily  which  is  not  white,  but  red.  It  is  found  in  at 
least  one  locality  in  this  State,  —  Scudder's  Pond,  in 
the  village  of  Centreville,  in  the  town  of  Barnstable. 
These  lilies  are  rare  and  valued  ;  Mr.  John  Owen 
tells  me  he  paid  a  dollar  for  one  which  he  procured 
for  Professor  Gray. 

At  last  come  the  strawberries,  of  which  Walton 
quotes  from  Dr.  Boteler  the  famous  saying,  "  Doubt- 


154        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

less  God  could  have  made  a  better  berry,  but  doubt 
less  God  never  did."  When  they  have  ripened  in  our 
own  gardens,  summer  has  begun,  hardly  till  then ; 
and  they  mark  pretty  nearly  the  true  astronomical  be 
ginning  of  the  season.  The  "  strawberry  festivals  " 
which  have  become  common  of  late  years  show  the 
popularity  of  this  first  fruit  of  the  summer.  There 
will  be  found  a  number  of  natural  anniversaries,  if  we 
look  carefully  for  them.  The  blooming  of  the  May 
flower  is  the  first ;  then  comes  that  of  the  lilacs  on  the 
last  week  of  May,  formerly  a  great  holiday  season  in 
this  State ;  of  the  wild  honeysuckle,  azalea,  Pinxter 
Blumqies  of  the  New  York  Dutchmen,  which  was  a 
feasting  time  for  the  negroes  ;  the  strawberry  season  ; 
the  great  huckleberry-picking  time  ;  the  harvest,  with 
its  husking  and  its  cattle-show ;  and  lastly  Thanksgiv 
ing,  of  which  the  ripe  pumpkin  is,  as  it  were,  the  sun 
and  centre  in  all  societies  that  remember  their  New 
England  origin. 

In  July  the  wheat  harvest  begins  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  as  early  as  the  4th,  or  as  late  as  the  lat 
ter  part  of  the  month.  In  1850  the  bulk  of  the  crop 
was  cut  by  the  20th.  The  same  year  only  a  little 
wheat  had  been  cut  north  of  the  middle  of  England 
on  the  23d  of  August.  July  too  is  the  great  haying 
month.  What  a  smell  of  rum  there  used  to  be  all 
about  in  haying  time  when  I  was  a  boy !  It  was 
stronger  than  the  smell  of  the  hay  itself,  very  often. 
We  of  that  generation  used  to  associate  cutting 
grass  and  cutting  hair  in  an  odd  kind  of  way,  —  rum 
in  the  stomach  to  keep  the  heat  from  killing  the 
mower,  rum  on  the  head  to  keep  the  cold  from  killing 
the  child. 

The  flowering  meadows  are  so  sweet   during  the 


THE   SEASONS.  155 

first  week  of  July  that  the  ailanthus  thinks  it  must 
try  to  do  better.  It  tries,  and  fails  ignominiously. 
In  the  fields  the  blue  succory  lights  one  or  two  blos 
soms  in  its  chandelier ;  it  is  thrifty,  and  means  to 
have  its  lamps  last,  not  burn  all  out  at  once.  [Still 
burning,  end  of  September,  1867.]  In  the  garden 
the  stately  hollyhock  is  practising  the  same  economy. 
A  few  of  the  lower  or  middle  buds  have  opened,  and 
others  will  follow  in  succession  for  many  weeks.  Is 
anything  more  charming,  in  its  way,  than  an  old-fash 
ioned  single  hollyhock,  with  its  pink,  or  white,  or  yel 
low,  or  purple  flower,  and  the  little  pollen-powdered 
tree  springing  up  from  the  bottom  of  the  corolla  ?  A 
bee  should  be  buzzing  in  it,  for  a  bee  is  never  so  de- 
liciously  pavilioned  as  in  the  bell  tent  of  the  holly 
hock.  This  great,  stately  flower  flourishes  under  our 
Northern  skies,  yet  it  is  a  native  of  the  sultry  East ; 
and  in  the  stereograph  before  me  of  one  of  the  most 
sacred  spots  in  the  Holy  Land,  I  see  it  blossoming  as 
to-day  it  is  blossoming  in  my  garden.  None  could 
mistake  it,  as  its  tall  stem,  with  here  and  there  a 
flower,  rises  by  the  side  of  those  old  gnarled  olives  in 
the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 

The  Almanac-makers  cannot  agree  about  the  exact 
period  belonging  to  the  dog-days.  Some  place  it  from 
July  3d  to  August  llth,  others  from  July  24th  to 
August  24th.  The  last  agrees  best  with  the  popular 
impression.  Many  people  dread  the  thunder-storms 
which  often  bring  so  much  relief  during  the  k'  heated 
terms."  A  real  thunderbolt  truly  shot  is  a  missile 
which  the  ancients  might  well  have  attributed  to  Jove. 
In  1850  one  fell  on  a  large  oak,  three  feet  in  diameter, 
in  Pequannock,  Hartford  County,  Connecticut,  with 
"  an  explosion  louder  than  an  hundred  pieces  of  the 


156        PAGES    FHOM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

heaviest  ordnance."  The  trunk  of  the  tree  was 
shivered  into  small  pieces,  not  one  of  them  larger  than 
a  man  could  lift.  Even  the  roots  were  scattered  about ; 
many  pieces  were  carried  more  than  thirty  rods ;  some 
portions  of  the  tree  were  crushed  as  fine  as  sawdust, 
and  the  fragments  covered  an  area  of  eight  or  ten 
acres.  I  can  believe  this  story  from  what  I  once  saw 
myself,  —  a  hemlock-tree,  riven,  splintered,  shattered, 
and  torn  into  ribbons  by  a  stroke  of  lightning.  A  tree 
in  the  front  yard  of  our  old  home  at  Cambridge  was 
twice  struck  within  my  remembrance,  —  once  when  I 
was  a  child,  again  a  few  years  since.  The  first  stroke 
tore  off  a  limb ;  the  second  set  the  decayed  interior  on 
fire,  and  it  was  cut  down. 

On  the  22d  of  August,  1851,  the  great  Tornado  spun 
like  a  devil's  humming-top  through  the  towns  of  West 
Cambridge  and  Medford.  The  lower  end  of  the  in 
verted  cone,  which  moved  in  a  northeasterly  direction, 
swept  all  before  it  in  a  breadth  of  from  forty  to  nearly 
eighty  rods.  It  carried  a  freight  car  sixty  feet  away 
from  the  track.  It  took  up  Mrs.  Caldwell  and  set  her 
down,  almost  unharmed,  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  from 
her  starting-point.  Its  bill  for  damages  was  more 
than  forty  thousand  dollars. 

The  evenings  grow  cooler  in  August,  but  there  is 
mischief  abroad  in  the  air.  Heaven  fills  up  fast  with 
young  angels  in  this  month  and  in  September.  The 
unhealthiest  months  of  the  year,  August  and  Septem 
ber,  are  only  separated  by  July  from  the  healthiest, 
June. 

And  now  the  cardinal-flower  throws  its  image  like  a 
blood-stain  into  the  stream  by  which  it  grows,  —  if  I 
may  borrow  a  verse,  which  none  has  a  better  right 
to,— 


THE   SEASONS.  157 

"  As  if  some  wounded  eagle's  breast, 

Slow  throbbing  o'er  the  plain, 
Had  left  its  airy  path  impressed 
In  drops  of  scarlet  rain." 

And  now  too  the  huckleberries  are  ripe.  O  for  a 
huckleberry  pasture  to  wander  in,  with  labyrinths  of 
taller  bushes,  with  bayberry-leaves  at  hand  to  pluck 
and  press  and  smell  at,  and  sweet-fern,  its  fragrant 
rival,  growing  near!  Such  a  huckleberry  pasture 
there  used  to  be  in  my  young  days  on  the  right  of  the 
Broadway  track  as  you  go  from  Boston,  a  little  before 
you  reach  the  Colleges.  In  Pittsfield  I  missed  the 
huckleberry,  the  bayberry,  the  sweet-fern,  the  barberry. 
At  least  there  were  none  near  my  residence,  so  far  as  I 
knew.  But  we  had  blackberries  in  great  number,  the 
high-bush  kind.  I  wonder  if  others  have  observed 
what  an  imitative  fruit  it  is.  I  have  tasted  the  straw 
berry,  the  pine-apple,  and  I  do  not  know  how  many 
other  flavors  in  it,  —  if  you  think  a  little,  and  have 
read  Darwin  and  Huxley,  perhaps  you  will  believe 
that  it  and  all  the  fruits  it  tastes  of  may  have  come 
from  a  common  progenitor. 

The  buckwheat  fields  are  in  blossom  now,  the  sec 
ond  week  of  August,  —  white  flowers  on  reddish  stems, 
—  a  sea  of  foam  over  a  forest  of  corals.  "  Fragrant," 
says  kind-hearted  Miss  Cooper.  O  infinite,  uncon 
querable  charity  of  woman's  heart!  O  sweet,  inex 
haustible  affluence  of  woman's  caressing  words !  Fra 
grant  !  —  Is  Dobbin  dead  ?  And  not  yet  under  the 
daisies  ?  It  is  high  time  he  was ! 

No,  —  Dobbin,  I  am  happy  to  learn,  is  well,  and 
thrashing  flies  in  the  pasture,  —  but  the  buckwheat  field 
in  blossom.  Let  us  go  to  the  windward  of  it.  The 
bees  appear  to  like  it  mightily,  —  it  is  all  alive  with 


158        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

them.  They  seem  peculiar  in  their  tastes,  —  they 
made  a  hive  of  the  carcass  of  Samson's  lion,  you  re 
member,  and  will  breed  of  themselves  in  that  of  a  bul 
lock,  according  to  Virgil.  I  can  understand  the  at 
traction  a  field  of  buckwheat  has  for  them. 

The  cows  are  standing  mid-leg  deep  in  the  pool, 
their  tails  going  with  rhythmical  regularity,  looking  as 
we  often  want  to  feel,  vacant  of  thought,  which  chases 
us  like  lo's  gad-fly,  meekly  unquestioning,  accepting 
life  as  a  finality.  For  the  lower  creatures  are  limited 
but  absolute  affirmations,  while  man  is  an  infinite 
question.  What  is  its  answer  ? 

Pc-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-o-e-e-e-ing !  replies  the  locust  from 
the  tree  overhead.  That  is  what  he  told  Adam,  and 
he  has  learned  nothing  since.  How  many  have  under 
taken  to  answer  the  question  who  had  nothing  better 
to  say !  Who  darkened  this  world  with  mystery  to 
the  only  creature  capable  of  understanding  it  ? 

"  Katy  did,  she  did  !  "  answers  a  pale  green  grass 
hopper.  Thou  liest,  insect !  Eve  did  ;  and  the  snake 
that  tempted  her  shall  eat  thee  for  saying  the  thing 
that  is  not ! 

In  the  last  week  of  August  used  to  fall  Commence 
ment  day  at  Cambridge.  I  remember  that  week  well, 
for  something  happened  to  me  once  at  that  time, 
namely,  I  was  born.  Commencement  was  a  great  oc 
casion  all  through  my  boyhood.  It  has  died  away 
into  next  to  nothing,  in  virtue  of  the  growth  of  the 
republican  principle.  Its  observances  emanated  from 
the  higher  authorities  of  the  College.  "  Class  day," 
which  has  killed  it,  is  a  triumph  of  universal  suffrage 
over  divine  right. 

But  what  a  time  it  was  for  us  young  Cantabrigians, 
born  under  the  shadow  of  the  College  walls !  It  was 


THE   SEASONS.  159 

a  holiday  for  Boston  as  well  as  Cambridge,  and  what 
we  cared  for  was  the  glitter  of  the  cavalcade,  the 
menagerie,  and  other  shows,  and  above  all  the  great 
encampment  which  overspread  the  Common,  where 
feasting  and  dancing,  much  drinking,  and  some  gam 
bling  used  to  go  on  with  the  approving  consent  of  the 
Selectmen,  —  such  was  the  license  of  the  "  good  old 
times."  But  the  year  had  nothing  for  us  boys  like 
"  the  tents."  Tuesday  night  was  to  us  like  the  even 
ing  before  Agincourt.  We  heard  the  hammers  late  in 
the  evening,  we  heard  them  early  in  the  morning,  as 
we  looked  out  of  the  west  window  to  see  if  "  the  tents" 
were  going  to  spread  over  as  wide  a  surface  as  in  other 
remembered  years.  The  sun  crawled  slowly  up  the 
sky,  like  a  golden  tortoise,  —  how  long  a  day  was  then ! 
At  last  the  blare  of  a  trumpet !  The  Governor  was 
coming,  guarded  by  his  terrible  light-horse  troop,  pro 
tected  too  by  his  faithful  band  of  mounted  truckmen 
from  Boston,  sturdy  men  on  massive  steeds,  in  white 
frocks,  all,  a  noble  show  of  broad  shoulders  and  stout 
arms. 

Let  those  who  will  go  into  the  old  yellow  meeting 
house  to  hear  the  "  parts  "  spoken  ;  for  us  rather  the 
gay  festivities  of  the  booths  and  the  stands,  where  the 
sovereigns  are  enjoying  their  royal  feast,  as  they  have 
done  since  the  time  when  they  used  to  be  ferried  over 
the  river  and  come  round  by  Charlestown.  Behold  ! 
Store  of  pork  and  beans  ;  mountainous  hams,  thick- 
starred  with  cloves  all  over  their  powdery  surface  ;  the 
round  of  beef  ;  the  dainty  chicken  for  the  town  ladies 
who  sit  fanning  themselves  on  benches  beneath  the 
dingy  sail-cloth  awnings.  Nor  be  forgotten  the  pie 
of  various  contents,  the  satisfying  doughnut,  nor  the 
ginger-cake,  hot  in  the  mouth.  The  sad  oyster  sum- 


160       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

moned  untimely,  for  there  is  no  r  in  August  properly 
spelled,  lies  naked  in  the  sunny  saucer,  waiting  to  lie 
swooped  up  by  undiscriminating  rustics,  to  whom  the 
salt-sea  mollusk  in  his  most  demoralized  condition  is 
always  the  chiefest  of  luxuries.  The  confectioner  is 
there  with  his  brass  scales,  and  Richard  Gunn,  —  O 
my  coevals,  remnants  of  yourselves,  do  you  remember 
Richard  Gunn  and  his  wonderful  toys,  with  the  in 
scription  over  them,  awe-inspiring  as  that  we  recollect 
so  well  in  the  mighty  Tuscan's  poem  ? 

"  Look,  but  handle  not ! " 

The  fair  plain,  not  then,  as  now,  cut  up  HIM  cattle-pens 
by  the  ugliest  of  known  fences,  swarmed  with  the  joy 
ous  crowds.  The  ginger-beer  carts  rang  their  bells 
and  popped  their  bottles,  the  fiddlers  played  Money 
Musk  over  and  over  and  over,  the  sailors  danced  the 
double-shuffle,  the  gentlemen  from  the  city  capered  in 
lusty  jigs,  the  town  ladies,  even,  took  a  part  in  the 
graceful  exercise,  the  confectioners  rattled  red  and 
white  sugar-plums,  long  sticks  of  candy,  sugar  and 
burnt  .almonds  into  their  brass  Males,  the  wedges  of 
pie  were  driven  into  splitting  mouths,  the  mountains 
of  ham  were  cut  down  as  Fort  Hill  is  being  sliced 
to-day ;  the  hungry  feeders  sat,  still  and  concentrated, 
about  the  boards  where  the  grosser  viands  were  served, 
while  the  milk  flowed  from  cracking  cocoa-nuts,  the 
fragrant  muskmelons  were  cloven  into  new-moon  cres 
cents,  and  the  great  watermelons  showed  their  cool 
pulps  sparkling  and  roseate  as  the  dewy  fingers  of  Au 
rora.  Then  and  there  I  saw  my  first  tiger,  also  Joseph 
Ridley  the  fat  boy,  and  a  veritable  Punch  and  Judy, 
whom  I  would  willingly  have  stayed  to  see  repeating 
their  performances  from  morning  to  night. 


THE   SEASONS.  161 

It  was  the  end  of  August,  you  remember,  and  the 
peaches  were  ripe,  and  the  early  apples  and  pears,  and, 
chief  among  the  fruits  of  the  season,  that  bounteous 
one  which  a  College  poet  thus  celebrated  in  the  year 
1811:- 

"  The  smaller  melons  go  for  each  one's  need, 
The  children  have  them,  or  they  go  to  seed; 
But  this  great  melon  waits  Commencement  day, 
Mounts  the  tall  cart,  to  Cambridge  takes  its  way; 
There,  proud  conclusion  of  its  happy  days, 
A  graduate's  palate  murmurs  forth  its  praise." 

So  sung  Edward  Everett,  Senior  Sophister,  aged  seven 
teen. 

The  Common  was  not  spacious  enough  for  the  mul 
titude.  The  old  churchyard  was  often  invaded  and 
its  flat  tombstones  were  taken  possession  of  by  small 
parties  as  tables  for  their  banquets.  The  proud  Vas 
sal  tablet  was  a  favorite  board  for  the  revellers,  and 
many  a  melon  gaped  and  scattered  its  seeds  over  its 
brown  freestone.  Many  a  group  feasted  and  laughed 
around  the  slab  where  the  virtues  of  a  deceased  Presi 
dent  were  embodied  in  Latin  which  might  have  fright 
ened  the  bravest  Roman,  but  which  threw  away  its 
terrors  upon  them. 

Thus  the  summer  used  to  die  out  in  a  blaze  of  glory 
for  us,  the  boys  of  Cambridge,  in  the  first  quarter  of 
this  present  century. 

AUTUMN. 

The  saddest  days  of  the  year  have  not  yet  come,  but 
the  golden-rod  and  the  aster  have  been  long  in  bloom 
on  the  hill  and  in  the  wood  and  by  the  roadside.  The 
birds  have  been  already  consulting  about  their  depar 
ture  for  the  South.  The  foliage  has  been  losing  its 


162       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

freshness  through  the  month  of  August,  and  here  and 
there  a  yellow  leaf  shows  itself  like  the  first  gray  hair 
amidst  the  locks  of  a  beauty  who  has  seen  one  season 
too  many.  The  evenings  have  become  decidedly  cooler 
than  those  of  midsummer.  The  whole  temperature  of 
the  day  begins  to  fall  rapidly  now,  for  September  is 
about  eight  degrees  cooler,  on  the  average,  than  August, 
and  four  or  five  degrees  cooler  than  June. 

The  year  is  getting  to  feel  rich,  for  his  golden  fruits 
are  ripening  fast,  and  he  has  a  large  balance  in  the 
barns,  which  are  his  banks.  The  members  of  his  fam 
ily  have  found  out  that  he  is  well  to  do  in  the  world. 
September  is  dressing  herself  in  showy  dahlias  and 
splendid  marigolds  and  starry  zinnias.  October,  the 
extravagant  sister,  has  ordered  an  immense  amount  of 
the  most  gorgeous  forest  tapestry  for  her  grand  re 
ception. 

In  the  midst  of  their  prosperity  a  blow  falls  on  the 
family  in  the  shape  of  the  first  frost.  The  earliest  in 
thirty-two  years,  at  Waltham,  Massachusetts,  was  on 
the  7th  of  September  ;  the  latest  day  to  which  it  was 
put  off,  the  18th  of  October.  The  morning-glories, 
the  running  vines,-  the  tomato  plant*},  the  more  suc 
culent  flowering  annuals,  feel  the  first  frost,  droop, 
shrivel,  blacken,  and  are  dead  henceforth  to  the  sweet 
morning  sunshine  and  the  cool  evening  dew.  But  the 
surviving  plants  put  on  no  mourning,  and  the  brilliant 
dresses  which  have  been  ordered  must  be  worn. 
Something  like  this,  it  is  said,  has  been  occasionally 
seen  in  spheres  of  being  higher  than  the  vegetable 
circle. 

About  —  this  —  time  —  that  —  is  —  all  —  along  — 
until  —  it  —  comes  —  if  —  it  —  comes  —  at  —  all,  (I 
speak  after  the  manner  of  my  good  old  friend  The  Far- 


THE   SEASONS.  163 

mer's  Almanac,)  look  out  for  the  storm  called  "  The 
Equinoctial." 

Do  you  know,  dear  reader,  that  I  can  remember  the 
great  September  gale  of  1815,  as  if  it  had  blown  yes 
terday  ?  What  do  you  think  is  really  (independently 
of  all  imaginative  poetical  statements)  the  first  image 
which  presents  itself  to  my  recollection  at  this  moment, 
connected  with  the  September  gale  ?  Boys  are  boys, 
and  apples  are  apples.  I  can  see  the  large  Rhode 
Island  greenings,  promise  of  many  a  coming  banquet, 
strewed  under  the  tree  that  used  to  stand  in  The  Gar 
den,  —  these  are  what  I  am  really  thinking  of.  They 
lie  strewed  about  on  the  floor  of  my  memory  at  this 
very  instant  of  time,  just  as  they  lay  beneath  the  tree 
on  the  23d  of  September,  1815.  It  was  an  awful 
blow.  Began  from  the  east,  got  round  to  the  south 
east,  at  last  to  the  south,  —  we  have  had  heavy  blows 
from  that  quarter  since  then,  as  you  suggest  with  your 
natural  pleasant  smile.  It  tore  great  elms  up  by  the 
roots  in  the  Boston  Mall,  and  in  the  row  Mr.  Paddock 
planted  by  the  Granary  Burial-ground.  What  was 
very  suggestive,  the  English  elms  were  the  chief  suf 
ferers.  The  American  ones,  slenderer  and  more  yield 
ing,  renewed  the  old  experience  of  the  willows  by  the 
side  of  the  oaks. 

The  wind  caught  up  the  waters  of  the  bay  and  of  the 
river  Charles,  as  mad  shrews  tear  the  hair  from  each 
other's  heads.  The  salt  spray  was  carried  far  inland, 
and  left  its  crystals  on  the  windows  of  farm-houses  and 
villas.  I  have,  besides  more  specific  recollections,  a 
general  remaining  impression  of  a  mighty  howling, 
roaring,  banging,  and  crashing,  with  much  running 
about,  and  loud  screaming  of  orders  for  sudden  taking 
in  of  all  sail  about  the  premises,  and  battening  down 


164        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

of  everything  that  could  flap  or  fly  away.  The  top- 
railing  of  our  old  gambrel-roofed  house  could  not  be 
taken  in,  and  it  tried  an  aeronautic  excursion,  as  I  re 
member.  Dreadful  stories  came  in  from  scared  peo 
ple  that  managed  somehow  to  blow  into  harbor  in  our 
mansion.  Barns  had  been  unroofed,  "chimbleys" 
overthrown,  and  there  was  an  awful  story  of  somebody 
taken  up  by  the  wind,  and  slammed  against  something 
with  the  effect  of  staving  in  his  ribs,  —  fearful  to  think 
of  I  It  was  hard  travelling  that  day.  Professor  Far- 
rar  tried  with  others  to  reach  the  river,  but  they  were 
frequently  driven  back,  and  had  to  screen  themselves 
behind  fences  and  trees,  or  tack  against  the  mighty 
blast,  which  drove  them  back  like  a  powerful  current 
of  water. 

Boston  escaped  the  calamity  of  having  a  high  tide 
in  conjunction  with  the  violence  of  the  gale,  but  Prov 
idence  was  half  drowned,  the  flood  rising  twelve  or 
fourteen  feet  above  high-water  mark. 

It  is  something  to  have  seen  or  felt  or  heard  the 
great  September  gale ;  I  embalmed  some  of  my  fresher 
recollections  of  it  in  a  copy  of  verses  which  some  of 
my  readers  may  have  seen.  I  am  afraid  there  is  some 
thing  of  what  we  may  call  indulgently  negative  veracity 
in  that  youtliful  effusion.  But  the  greenings  are  a 
genuine  reminiscence,  —  there  they  are,  lying  all  about 
on  the  floor  of  my  memory,  just  as  the  day  they  were 
blown  off.  Time  will  never  pick  them  up  until  he 
picks  me  up,  still  carrying  with  me  the  recollection  of 
the  Rhode  Island  greenings. 

Two  autumnal  wonders  have  been  much  written 
about,  and  never  yet  reached,  —  the  change  of  the 
forest  leaves  and  the  Indian  summer.  The  beautiful 


THE   SEASONS.  165 

colors  of  the  leaves  are  often  ascribed  to  the  effects  of 
frost,  but  it  is  well  known  that  they  show  themselves 
before  there  has  been  any  frost.  Some  have  attrib 
uted  them  to  the  oxidation  or  acidification  of  the  color 
ing  matter,  chlorophyl ;  but  the  reason  why  American 
woods  should  be  so  much  more  brilliant  in  the  autumn 
than  those  of  the  Old  World  is  not  obvious. 

The  Virginia  creeper  is  the  first  to  change ;  after 
that  follow  the  maples.  Miss  Cooper  speaks  of  "  yel 
low  years  "  in  distinction  from  those  in  which  scarlet, 
crimson,  pink,  and  dark  red  prevail.  Some  trees,  she 
says,  are  red  one  year  and  yellow  another.  Many  oaks 
and  maples,  sumachs,  dogwood,  the  Virginia  creeper, 
show  different  shades  of  red ;  other  oaks  and  maples, 
elms,  lindens,  chestnuts,  poplars,  birches,  beeches,  their 
several  special  tints  of  yellow.  I  have  seen  maples 
that  looked  like  yellow  flames,  and  others  that  were 
incarnadined  as  if  they  had  been  dyed  in  blood.  The 
sugar-maples  of  the  Berkshire  woods  were  not  so  bril 
liant  as  the  soft  maples  of  this  neighborhood.  One 
curious  effect  I  have  often  noticed  in  the  first  half  of 
October,  namely,  the  dark  patches  and  belts  on  the  hill 
sides,  where  the  deep  green  hemlocks  showed  amidst 
the  pale  and  fading  deciduous  trees  ;  a  month  earlier 
their  masses  of  foliage  run  into  each  other  without 
abrupt  transition. 

In  October,  or  early  in  November,  after  the  "equi 
noctial  "  storms,  comes  the  Indian  summer.  It  is  the 
time  to  be  in  the  woods  or  on  the  sea-shore,  —  a  sweet 
season  that  should  be  given  to  lonely  walks,  to  stum 
bling  about  in  old  churchyards,  plucking  on  the  way 
the  aromatic  silvery  herb  everlasting,  and  smelling  at 
its  dry  flower  until  it  etherizes  the  soul  into  aimless 
reveries  outside  of  space  and  time.  There  is  little 


166       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

need  of  trying  to  paint  the  still,  warm,  misty,  dreamy 
Indian  summer  in  words ;  there  are  many  states  that 
have  no  articulate  vocabulary,  and  are  only  to  be  re 
produced  by  music,  and  the  mood  this  season  produces 
is  of  that  nature.  By  and  by,  when  the  white  man  is 
thoroughly  Indianized  (if  he  can  bear  the  process), 
some  native  Haydn  will  perhaps  turn  the  Indian  sum 
mer  into  the  loveliest  andante  of  the  new  "  Creation." 
This  is  the  season  for  old  churchyards,  as  I  was  say 
ing  in  the  last  paragraph.  The  Boston  ones  have  been 
ruined  by  uprooting  and  transplanting  the  gravestones. 
But  the  old  Cambridge  burial-ground  is  yet  inviolate ; 
as  are  the  one  in  the  edge  of  Watertown,  beyond 
Mount  Auburn,  and  the  most  interesting  in  some  re 
spects  of  all,  that  at  Dorchester,  where  they  show  great 
stones  laid  on  the  early  graves  to  keep  the  wolves  from 
acting  like  hyenas.  I  make  a  pilgrimage  to  it  from 
time  to  time  to  see  that  little  Submit  sleeps  in  peace, 
and  read  the  tender  lines  that  soothed  the  heart  of  the 
Pilgrim  mother  two  hundred  years  ago  aud  more :  — 

"  Submit  submitted  to  her  heavenly  king 
Being  a  flower  of  that  eternal  spring, 
Neare  3  yeares  old  she  dyed  in  heaven  to  waite 
The  yeare  was  sixteen  hundred  48." 

Who  are  the  unknown  poets  that  write  the  epitaphs 
which  sometimes  startle  us  by  their  pathos  or  their 
force  ?  Who  wrote  that  on  Martin  Elginbrodde  ?  I 
saw  it  first  in  one  of  George  Macdonald's  stories,  but 
it  is  to  be  found  in  an  Edinburgh  churchyard,  and  in 
a  little  different  form  it  is  to  be  seen  on  a  tombstone 
in  Germany,  as  we  are  told  in  the  "  Harvard  Lyceum  " 
(1811),  from  which  I  quoted  Mr.  Everett's  lines.  If 
you  have  not  read  the  epitaph,  it  may  give  you  a  sen 
sation.  Here  is  George  Macdonald's  version  :  — 


THE  SEASONS.  167 

"  Here  lie  I,  Martin  Elginbrodde, 
Have  mercy  on  my  soul,  Lord  God, 
As  I  would  do,  were  I  Lord  God, 
An'  ye  were  Martin  Elginbrodde." 

"  Eldenbrode  "  is  the  name  as  spelt  on  the  Edinburgh 
tombstone.  Mount  Auburn  wants  a  century  to  hallow 
it,  but  is  beginning  to  soften  with  time  a  little.  Many 
of  us  remember  it  as  yet  unbroken  by  the  spade,  before 
Miss  Hannah  Adams  went  and  lay  down  there  under 
the  turf,  alone,  —  "  first  tenant  of  Mount  Auburn." 
The  thunder-storms  do  not  frighten  the  poor  little 
woman  now  as  they  used  to  in  those  early  days  when 
I  remember  her  among  the  living.  There  are  many 
names  of  those  whom  we  have  loved  and  honored  on 
the  marbles  of  that  fair  cemetery.  One  of  whom  I 
know  nothing  has  an  epitaph  which  arrested  me,  — 
four  words  only :  — 

"  She  was  so  pleasant !  " 

If  you  are  at  the  sea-shore  during  the  lovely  autum 
nal  days,  you  feel  it  to  be  the  season  of  all  others  to 
believe  in  the  wonders  and  mysteries  and  superstitions 
of  the  ocean,  to  see  the  mer-maiden  on  the  rocks  by 
day,  and  the  phantom  ship  on  the  wave  by  night,  — 
to 

"  Have  sight  of  Proteus  coming  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

O,  if  one  could  but  see  the  SEA-SERPENT,  just  once, 
but  perfectly  plain,  so  as  to  tell  of  it  all  his  days! 
Head  up,  as  big  as  a  horse's  (a  horse's  mane,  too,  some 
say),  seventy  or  a  hundred  feet  long,  body  as  large 
round  as  a  half-barrel,  —  so  thought  Lonson  Nash,  Es 
quire,  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  Gloucester,  Massachu 
setts,  who  saw  it  through  a  perspective-glass  in  the 


168        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

year  1817.  Yon  don't  believe  there  is  any  such  snake 
or  sea  beast?  How  do  you  know  that  it  is  not  the  old 
Zeuglodon,  as  some  have  thought?  Are  you  prepared 
to  affirm  positively  that  it  is  not  a  kind  of  secondary 
enaliosaurian,  or  an  elongated  cetacean?  A  great 
naturalist  thinks  it  may  be  one  of  those  old  tertiary 
monsters  come  to  light  again. 

A  little  bewildering,  the  idea  of  those  old  fossilized 
animals  having  living  descendants  still  about !  What 
if  one  should  shoot  at  an  unknown  flying  creature  and 
bring  down,  say  a  pterodactyl,  —  a  bird-like  reptile, 
with  sixteen-f eet  spread  of  wings  ?  Mr.  Gosse  argues 
for  the  existence  of  the  sea-serpent.  That  is  against 
the  chance  of  there  being  such  a  living  creature ;  for 
Mr.  Gosse  is  the  sage  who  maintains  that  fossil  skele 
tons  with  food  inside  of  them  may  be  make-believes, 
that  is,  never  alive  at  all,  but  made  skeletons  just  as  if 
they  had  once  been  breathing  animals,  —  a  thing  in 
credible  to  be  told  of  any  sane  man,  if  he  had  not  put 
it  in  a  book. 

The  Indian  corn  is  ripe,  beautiful  from  the  day  it 
sprung  out  of  the  ground  to  the  time  of  husking. 
First  a  little  fountain  of  green  blades,  then  a  minia 
ture  sugar-cane,  by  and  by  lifting  its  stately  spikes  at 
the  summit,  alive  with  tremulous  pendent  anthers,  then 
throwing  out  its  green  silken  threads,  each  leading  to 
the  germ  of  a  kernel,  promise  of  the  milky  ear,  at  last 
offering  the  perfect  product,  so  exquisitely  enfolded  by 
Nature,  outwardly  in  a  coarse  wrapper,  then  in  sub 
stantial  paper-like  series  of  layers,  then  in  a  tissue  as 
soft  and  dainty  as  a  fairy's  most  intimate  garment,  and 
under  this  the  white  even  rows,  which  are  to  harden 
into  pearly,  golden,  or  ruby  grains,  and  be  the  food  of 
half  a  continent. 


THE   SEASONS.  169 

"  Comin'  thro'  the  rye  "  is  well,  when  the  traveller 
meets  good  company ;  but  comin'  through  the  corn 
field,  where  the  stalks  are  eight  or  ten  feet,  nay,  if  a 
field  of  broom-corn,  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  high,  is  like 
threading  a  trackless  forest,  and  a  meeting  there  is  a 
real  adventure.  It  is  astonishing  to  see  what  substance 
there  is  to  this  wood  of  three  or  four  months'  growth. 
I  was  in  the  corn-field  at  Antietam  on  the  Sunday  after 
the  great  battle  ;  and  though  some  of  the  fiercest  fight 
ing  was  done  there,  the  corn-stalks  were  left  standing 
very  generally,  as  if  they  had  been  trees. 

The  lighter  grains  have  long  been  reaped  and  gar 
nered  :  now  harvest  the  yellow  corn,  tumble  the  great 
pumpkins,  looking  like  oranges  from  Brobdingnag,  into 
the  wagons,  and  dig  the  potatoes.  There  is  a  mild 
excitement  about  potato-digging;  every  hill  is  a  lot 
tery,  the  size  and  number  of  its  contents  uncertain ; 
and  Nature's  homely  miracle,  the  multiplication  of  the 
five  loaves,  —  for  a  potato  is  a  loaf  of  unbaked  bread, 
the  real  bread-fruit  of  the  temperate  climates,  —  is  one 
of  the  most  pleasing  of  her  wonder-working  perform 
ances. 

As  the  air  grows  colder,  the  long  wedges  of  geese 
flying  south,  with  their  "  commodore  "  in  advance,  and 
honking  as  they  fly,  are  seen  high  up  in  the  heavens, 
where 

"  Vainly  the  fowler's  eye 
Might  mark  their  distant  flight  to  do  them  wrong." 

These  were  noticed  October  1st,  13th,  27th,  in  differ 
ent  years,  and  wild  ducks  October  10th.  [Geese  seen 
flying  south  this  morning.  "  Transcript,"  September 
9th,  1867.] 

And  now  the  clouds  shake  out  their  first  loose  snow- 
flakes,  sometimes  seen  only  in  the  air,  and  never  whit- 


170       PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

ening  the  ground  at  all,  but  dissolving  before  they 
reach  it.  The  earliest  date  at  which  snow  was  seen 
at  Waltham,  in  the  course  of  thirty-two  years,  was  on 
the  13th  of  October,  in  1837 ;  the  latest  date  of  the 
first  snow,  the  7th  of  December,  in  1815.  At  Bruns 
wick,  Maine,  snow  fell  on  the  26th  of  September  in 
the  year  1808.  [A  few  snow-flakes  falling  with  rain. 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  September  30,  1867.] 

The  winding  -  sheet  of  summer  is  weaving  in  the 
roaring  loom  of  the  storm-clouds.  The  trees  are  being 
stripped  of  their  garments ;  naked  they  came  into  the 
season,  and  naked  they  must  go  out  of  it  It  is  time 
to  be  getting  ready  for  Thanksgiving. 

Our  honest  Puritan  festival  is  spreading,  not,  as 
formerly,  as  a  kind  of  opposition  Christmas,  but  as  a 
welcome  prelude  and  adjunct,  a  brief  interval  of  good 
cheer  and  social  rejoicing,  heralding  the  longer  season 
of  feasting  and  rest  from  labor  in  the  month  that  fol 
lows.  Note  the  curious  parallelism  so  often  seen  be 
tween  New  World  ways  and  things  and  Old  World 
ones.  For  the  boar's  head  substitute  the  turkey.  For 
the  plum-pudding,  the  pumpkin-pie.  For  the  Christ 
mas-box,  the  contribution-box. 

The  services  used  to  be  longer  on  Thanksgiving  day 
than  any  single  one  on  an  ordinary  Sunday,  but  they 
were  not  encored,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
weekly  exercise.  I  think  we  boys  bore  them  better 
than  the  stated  dispensations.  The  sermon  had  a  cer 
tain  comforting,  though  subdued  cheerfulness  running 
through  it,  and  the  anthem  and  the  handing  round  the 
contribution-boxes  took  up  a  good  deal  of  time.  O 
that  Thanksgiving  anthem !  We  used  to  have  a  chor 
ister  who  labored  under  various  aerial  obstructions,  an 
exterminating  warfare  with  which  served  as  the  ordi- 


THE   SEASONS.  171 

nary  overture  to  every  musical  performance.  We  also 
had  a  bass-viol,  which  used  to  indulge  in  certain  rasp 
ing  grunts  and  taurine  bellowings,  which  had  a  mar 
vellous  effect  in  whetting  the  appetite  for  what  was 
coming.  These  preliminary  sounds  got  oddly  mixed 
up  with  sacred  music  in  my  recollections,  and  espe 
cially  as  preludes  to  the  great  anthem.  I  wonder  if 
Nathaniel  Munroe  has  any  sweeter  notes  in  heaven 
than  those  delicate  falsetto  warblings  that  he  used  to 
charm  us  with,  while  he  was  with  us  here  below  I 

If  you  ask  my  honest  opinion,  I  will  tell  you  I  be 
lieve  that  many  of  us  young  reprobates,  instead  of  fol 
lowing  the  good  minister  through  his  convincing  proofs 
of  the  propriety  of  gratitude  for  the  blessings  of  the 
year,  were  thinking  of  boiled  turkey  and  oyster-sauce, 
roast  ditto  with  accompaniments,  plum-puddings,  pump 
kin-pies,  apples,  oranges,  almonds,  and  shagbarks.  It 
seems  a  rather  low  valuation  of  our  spiritual  condition, 
perhaps  ;  but  remember  that  Thanksgiving  comes  only 
once  a  year,  and  sermons  come  twice  a  week. 

What  is  left  of  autumn  after  Thanksgiving  is  like 
the  goose  from  which  breast  and  legs  have  been  carved, 
—  of  which  Zachary  Porter,  deceased,  sometime  land 
lord  of  the  inn  by  the  side  of  the  road  that  leads  to 
Menotomy,  discoursed  to  us  on  that  memorable  even 
ing  when  we  founded  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  Maga 
zine,"  since  known  to  many. 

Thanksgiving  is  the  winding  up  of  autumn.  The 
leaves  are  off  the  trees,  except  here  and  there  on  a 
beech  or  an  oak ;  there  is  nothing  left  on  the  boughs 
but  a  few  nuts  and  empty  birds'  nests.  The  earth 
looks  desolate,  and  it  will  be  a  comfort  to  have  the 
snow  on  the  ground,  and  to  hear  the  merry  jingle  of 
the  sleigh-bells. 


172        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

"Sleigh-bells,"  " sliagbarks,"  "pumpkin-pie."  These 
belong  to  the  New  World  vocabulary.  It  is  a  great 
misfortune  to  us  of  the  more  elderly  sort,  that  we  were 
bred  to  the  constant  use  of  words  in  English  children's 
books,  which  were  without  meaning  for  us  and  only 
mystified  us. 

We  were  educated,  you  remember  (I  am  speaking 
to  grandpapas  now),  on  Miss  Edgeworth's  "  Frank  " 
and  "  Parents'  Assistant,"  on  "  Original  Poems  "  and 
"  Evenings  at  Home  "  and  "  Cheap  Repository  Tracts." 
There  we  found  ourselves  in  a  strange  world,  where 
James  was  called  Jem,  not  Jim,  as  we  always  heard  it ; 
where  a  respectable  but  healthy  young  woman  was 
spoken  of  as  "a  stout  wench ; "  where  boys  played  at 
taio,  not  marbles ;  where  one  found  cowslips  in  the 
fields,  while  what  we  saw  were  buttercups;  where 
naughty  school-boys  got  through  a  gap  in  the  hedge, 
to  steal  Farmer  Giles's  red-streaks,  instead  of  shinning 
over  the  fence  to  hook  old  Daddy  Jones's  Baldwins ; 
where  Hodge  used  to  go  to  the  alehouse  for  his  mug 
of  beer,  while  we  used  to  see  old  Joe  steering  for  the 
grocery  to  get  his  glass  of  rum ;  where  toffy  and  lolly- 
pop  wsre  the  substitutes  for  molasses-candy  and  gibral- 
tars ;  where  poachers  were  pulled  up  before  the  squire 
for  knocking  down  hares,  while  our  country  boys  hunted 
(with  guns)  after  rabbits,  or  set  figgery-fours  for  them, 
without  fear  of  the  constable ;  where  birds  were  taken 
with  a  wonderful  substance  they  called  bird-lime ; 
where  boys  studied  in  forms,  and  where  there  were 
fags,  and  ushers,  and  barrings-out ;  where  there  were 
shepherds,  and  gypsies,  and  tinkers,  and  orange-women, 
who  sold  China  oranges  out  of  barrows ;  where  there 
were  larks  and  nightingales,  instead  of  yellow-birds 
and  bobolinks ;  where  the  robin  was  a  little  domestic 


THE   SEASONS.  173 

bird  that  fed  at  the  table,  instead  of  a  great  fidgety, 
jerky,  whooping  thrush;  where  poor  people  lived  in 
thatched  cottages,  instead  of  shingled  ten-footers  ; 
where  the  tables  were  made  of  deal,  where  every  vil 
lage  had  its  parson  and  clerk  and  beadle,  its  green 
grocer,  its  apothecary  who  visited  the  sick,  and  its 
bar-maid  who  served  out  ale. 

What  a  mess,  —  there  is  no  better  word  for  it,  — 
what  a  mess  was  made  of  it  in  our  young  minds  in  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  what  we  read  about  with  what  we 
saw !  It  was  like  putting  a  picture  of  Regent's  Park 
in  one  side  of  a  stereoscope,  and  a  picture  of  Boston 
Common  on  the  other,  and  trying  to  make  one  of 
them.  The  end  was  that  we  all  grew  up  with  a  men 
tal  squint  which  we  could  never  get  rid  of.  We  saw 
the  lark  and  the  cowslip  and  the  rest  on  the  printed 
page  with  one  eye,  —  the  bobolink  and  the  buttercup 
and  so  on  with  the  other  in  nature.  This  world  is 
always  a  riddle  to  us  at  best,  —  for  the  answer  see 
our  next,  —  but  those  English  children's  books  seemed 
so  perfectly  simple  and  natural,  —  as  they  were  to 
English  children,  —  and  yet  were  so  alien  to  our 
youthful  experiences,  that  the  Houyhnhnm  primer 
could  not  have  muddled  our  intellects  more  hope 
lessly. 

But  here  comes  Winter,  savage  as  when  he  met  the 
Pilgrims  at  Plymouth,  Indian  all  over,  his  staff  a 
naked  splintery  hemlock,  his  robe  torn  from  the  backs 
of  bears  and  bisons,  and  fringed  with  wampum  of  rat 
tling  icicles,  turning  the  ground  he  treads  to  ringing 
iron,  and,  like  a  mighty  sower,  casting  his  snow  far 
and  wide,  over  all  hills  and  valleys  and  plains. 


174       PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 
WINTER. 

IT  seems  rather  odd  that  winter  does  not  fairly 
begin  until  the  sun  has  turned  the  corner,  and  is  every 
day  shining  higher  and  higher,  in  fact  bringing  sum 
mer  to  us  as  fast  as  he  can.  But  the  astronomical 
date  corresponds  with  the  popular  belief  as  well  as  the 
meteorological  record,  "  As  the  day  lengthens,  the  cold 
strengthens."  We  do  not  commonly  feel  that  Winter 
is  thoroughly  in  earnest  until  after  the  Christmas  holi 
days,  which  include  the  1st  of  January.  And  inas 
much  as  on  the  14th  of  February  our  thoughts  are 
led,  by  the  ingenious  fiction  of  St.  Valentine's  day,  to 
look  forward  henceforth  to  spring,  which  is  at  hand, 
we  may  say  that  the  white  pith,  or  marrow,  of  winter 
lies  locked  up  in  the  six  weeks  between  these  two 
festivals. 

It  has  been  snowing  all  day  and  all  night.  Your 
cook  cannot  open  the  back  door  when  the  milkman 
comes,  —  two  hours  late,  pulling  his  legs  up  at  every 
step,  as  if  he  was  lifting  posts  out  of  their  holes. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  you  venture  a  mild  remark 
to  an  oldish  friend  from  the  country,  that  a  good  deal 
of  snow  has  fallen. 

"Call  this  a  deep  snow,  do  y'  ?  Y'  ought  t'  h' 
seen  one  o'  them  real  old-fashioned  snow-storms,  sech 
as  we  uset  t'  hev  wen  I  w'z  a  boy.  Up  t'  th'  secon'- 
story  windahs,  —  don't  hev  no  sech  snow-storms  now- 
a-days." 

Something  like  the  above  has  not  improbably  been 
heard  from  bucolic  or  other  lips  by  some  of  my  read 
ers.  The  illusion  is  very  common  ;  perhaps  they  share 
it  with  their  rural  friend.  It  is  an  illusion.  They 
were  not  so  tall  then  as  now,  and  to  a  child  of  three 


THE   SEASONS.  175 

feet  a  five-foot  drift  is  as  high  as  a  ten-foot  one  to  a 
well-grown  man.  Of  course,  if  you  hunt  the  records 
back  to  the  time  of  the  settlement  of  the  country,  you 
will  very  probably  find  a  mammoth  snow-storm  some 
where,  and  the  chance  manifestly  is  that  the  biggest 
of  two  hundred  years  and  more  will  not  have  been  in 
your  time  but  before  it.  In  the  year  1717  they  did  in 
deed  have  a  real  old-fashioned  snow-storm,  the  ground 
covered  from  ten  to  twenty  feet,  houses  quite  buried, 
as  Thoreau  mentions  that  an  Indian  discovered  a  cot 
tage  beneath  a  drift,  by  the  hole  which  the  heat  from 
the  chimney  had  melted,  —  just  as  I  remember  it  is 
told  that  Elizabeth  Woodcock's  breath  (you  recollect 
the  story  of  her  being  buried  a  week  under  the  snow) 
had  melted  a  conical  or  funnel-like  hole,  leading  from 
her  mouth  to  the  surface  of  the  snow  over  her. 

But  only  last  winter  (1866—67)  we  had  what  might 
be  called  a  very  respectable  snow-storm;  a  drift 
reached  to  the  window-sill  of  the  second  story  of  the 
house  next  to  my  old  Cambridge  birth-place.  That 
will  be  an  old-fashioned  snow-storm  for  people  in  1900. 
Nature  is  more  uniform  than  we  think ;  I  am  tempted 
to  read  the  often-quoted  line, 

"  Tempora  non  mutantur,  sed  nos  mutamur  in  illis" 

Snow-storms  used  to  be  more  dreaded  in  the  country 
than  in  the  city,  but  since  we  pile  our  edifices  so  high, 
the  avalanches  from  the  roofs  are  a  perpetual  source 
of  danger  and  anxiety. 

The  average  number  of  snowy  days  in  a  season  is 
thirty,  the  extremes  varying  from  nineteen  to  fifty,  ac 
cording  to  Professor  Cleaveland's  record  of  fifty-two 
years,  kept  at  Brunswick,  Maine. 

Here  is  a  tabular  view  of  the  snow-storms  in  Bos- 


17G        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

ton  for   the   last   twenty-four  years,  taken  from  the 
"  Transcript,"  and  dated  June  19,  1867. 


Tear*. 

Number  of  Storm*. 

Depth  of  Snow. 

1843-44 
1844-45 

44 
36 

7  feet  7\  inches. 
3     "    3        " 

1846-46 

27 

3    «    7 

« 

1846-47 

32 

2    «    8 

« 

1847-48 

27 

2     "    1 

« 

1848-49 

27 

3    "    1 

« 

1849-50 

33 

2    "11 

« 

1850-51 

28 

3    "    1 

« 

1851-52 

38 

6    "    81      " 

1852-63 

20 

3    "    2 

« 

1853-64 
1854-56 

24 
36 

7    «    1J 
3    "    7, 

t   « 

1866-66 

28 

4    "   6 

« 

1856-57 

32 

6    "    2 

« 

1857-58 

14 

2    "11 

« 

1858-59 

23 

4    "     j 

« 

1869-60 

24 

3    «    2 

<< 

1860-61 

34 

6    "    6 

« 

1861-62 

35 

6    «    1 

« 

1862-63 

25 

4    "    7- 

« 

1863-64 

26 

2    "    6 

<« 

1864-65 

32 

3    "    3^ 

« 

1865-66 

23 

3    "      ; 

« 

1866-67 

26 

5    "    & 

« 

The  whole  number  of  snow-storms  in  Boston  for 
the  past  twenty-four  years  is  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  ;  depth  of  snow  during  the  same  period,  one  hun 
dred  feet  seven  and  three  eighths  inches. 

The  average  number  of  snow-storms  during  the 
above  period  (twenty-four  years)  was  a  fraction  less 
than  twenty-nine ;  and  the  average  depth  of  snow  is 
about  four  feet  and  one  half  inch. 

And  here  is  a  record  from  the  same  paper  of  the 
snow  of  the  past  season  in  Boston. 

44  The  first  snow-storm  was  on  the  23d  day  of  No- 


THE   SEASONS.  177 

vember,  1866,  at  which  period  sufficient  snow  fell  to 
make  the  ground  white  ;  and  the  succeeding  ones  were 
as  follows :  November  25,  ground  white  ;  December 
16,  3  inches;  17th,  £  inch;  20th,  i  inch;  27th,  1 
inch  ;  and  31st,  3j  inches  ;  January  1,  1867,  2  inches ; 
6th,  4  inches ;  12th,  ground  white  ;  17th,  21  inches 
(severest  snow-storm  experienced  in  Boston  for  many 
years)  ;  21st,  6  inches  ;  and  26th  £  inch ;  February 
4,  ground  white  ;  20th,  li  inches  ;  21,  4£  inches  ;  and 
23d,  \  inch ;  March  3d  and  4th,  5  inches ;  7th,  4 
inches ;  10th,  ground  white ;  12th,  little  snow ;  16th 
and  17th,  12  inches ;  April  24,  little  snow.  Total 
number  of  storms,  25.  Depth  of  snow,  5  feet  9£ 
inches." 

Next  in  interest  to  the  snow-storm  come  the  "  cold 
snap  "  and  the  "  January  thaw."  Mr.  Meriam,  the 
weather-wise  man  of  Brooklyn,  has  attempted  to  show 
that  the  cold  snaps,  as  we  commonly  call  them,  are 
governed  by  a  law  which  he  explains  as  follows.  A 
circle  representing  three  hundred  and  sixty  hours  is 
divided  into  eight  parts  of  forty-five  degrees  each. 
The  cold  "  cycle,"  as  he  calls  it,  may  last  through  one 
or  two  or  more  of  these  divisions,  that  is,  forty-five 
hours  or  ninety,  or  a  hundred  and  thirty-five,  and  so 
on  up  to  three  hundred  and  fifteen  hours,  or  three 
hundred  and  sixty.  He  finds  an  average  of  between 
five  and  six  of  these  cold  cycles  in  a  winter.  Whether 
this  is  fanciful  or  not,  these  paroxysms  of  cold  alter 
nating  with  milder  temperatures  are  familiar  facts. 

February  8,  1861,  is  said  to  have  been  the  coldest 
day  in  this  region  for  thirty-seven  years.  The  ther 
mometer  fell  to  from  12°  to  20°  below  zero  in  Boston, 
and  from  22°  to  30°  in  the  neighboring  towns.  Dis 
agreeable  surprises  are  common  when  the  temperature 


178       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

is  of  this  quality,  or  approaches  it.  I  met  a  young 
lady  one  very  cold  day  a  winter  or  two  ago,  who  looked 
blooming,  except  that  a  snow-white  stripe  ran  directly 
down  from  the  centre  of  the  tip  of  her  nose  between 
the  nostrils,  to  the  upper  lip.  She  was  beginning  to 
freeze  along  the  middle  line  of  the  face,  where  the 
blood-vessels  are  smallest.  You  may  know  it  is  a  cold 
day  when  you  see  people  clapping  their  hands  to  their 
ears,  and  hoisting  their  shoulders  and  running.  I  see 
them  on  the  long  West  Boston  Bridge  every  winter 
from  my  warm  home  at  the  river's  edge  in  Boston, 
—  I  am  afraid  with  that  wicked  pleasure  Lucretius 
speaks  of. 

The  "  January  thaw  "  brings  the  avalanches  men 
tioned  above,  the  discomfiture  of  sleighing  parties,  the 
destruction  of  skating,  horrible  streets,  odious  with  the 
accumulations  which  the  melting  snow  uncovers,  and  a 
corresponding  demoralization  of  the  human  race.  Then 
comes  the  cold  day,  with  the  slippery  sidewalks,  and 
broken  arms  and  legs,  or  at  least  constant  anxiety  to 
avoid  getting  them,  so  that  between  the  snow-slides 
from  the  roofs  and  the  danger  of  tumbling,  there  is  no 
peace  in  walking  during  a  good  part  of  the  winter. 
One  cannot  think  his  own  thoughts  while  he  has  to 
keep  looking  up,  ready  to  jump,  or  looking  down,  ready 
to  save  himself,  and  all  the  while  his  eyes  aching  with 
the  glare  of  the  snow. 

The  official  seal  of  winter,  as  before  said,  is  the 
closing  of  the  Hudson  River.  In  1798  it  closed  on  the 
23d  of  November ;  in  1790  and  in  1802  not  until  the 
3d  of  February.  These  were  the  earliest  and  latest 
dates  in  a  record  of  more  than  fifty  years.  The  closure 
happened  in  December  forty-five  times,  in  November 
eight  times,  in  February  twice.  Until  the  seal  of  win- 


THE   SEASONS.  179 

ter  is  broken,  the  movements  of  life  are  all,  as  it  were, 
under  protest,  and  only  in  virtue  of  artificial  con 
ditions,  —  close  shelter,  thick  clothing,  household  fires. 
Between  the  last  dandelion  and  violet,  —  they  have 
been  found  in  December,  —  and  the  first  spring  blos 
som  which  lifts  the  snow  in  its  calyx,  there  is  a  frozen 
interregnum  in  the  vegetable  world,  save  for  the  lif e-in- 
death  of  the  solemn  evergreens,  the  pines  and  firs  and 
spruces.  Yet  there  is  a  proper  winter  life  which  de 
fies  the  snow  and  the  cold. 

In  the  animal  world  there  is  always  something  stir 
ring.  A  considerable  number  of  birds  are  permanent 
residents  with  us.  Mr.  Cabot  mentions  the  crow,  the 
blue-jay,  the  chickadee,  the  partridge,  and  the  quail, 
and  perhaps  some  hawks  and  owls.  The  gulls  are  well- 
known  winter  residents  to  all  of  us  who  live  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Charles.  Some  bluebirds  and  robins 
linger  with  us  through  the  winter,  and  the  snow-bird 
and  snow-bunting,  the  sparrow,  the  wren,  the  nuthatch, 
and  the  cross-bill,  are  more  or  less  frequent  visitors.  , 

Those  who  have  young  orchards  know  too  well  that 
mice  will  gnaw  them  under  cover  of  the  winter  snow. 
Squirrels  and  foxes,  the  large  and  smaller  hares  which 
we  call  rabbits,  the  mink,  and  the  musquash,  are  awake 
and  active  through  the  winter. 

All  these  manage  to  live  through  the  desperate  cold 
and  the  famine-breeding  snow ;  how,  let  Mr.  Emer 
son's  "  Titmouse  "  —  as  charming  a  bird  as  has  talked 
since  the  days  of  JEsop  —  tell  us  from  his  expe 
rience  :  — 

"  For  well  the  soul,  if  stout  within, 
Can  arm  impregnably  the  skin; 
And  polar  frost  my  frame  defied, 
Made  of  the  air  that  blows  outside." 


180        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

The  moral  of  the  poem  is  as  heroic  as  the  verse  is  ex 
quisite  ;  but  we  must  not  forget  the  non-conducting 
quality  of  fur  and  feathers,  and  remember,  if  we  are  at 
all  delicate,  to  go 

"  Wrapped  in  our  virtue,  and  a  good  surtout," 

by  way  of  additional  security.  Even  Thoreau  recog 
nizes  the  necessity  of  clothing  and  a  shelter  for  the 
human  being  in  this  climate,  though  he  says,  as  if  to 
show  that  the  last  is  of  the  nature  of  a  luxury,  "  There 
are  instances  of  men  having  done  without  it  for  long 
periods,  in  colder  countries  than  this." 

The  most  rudimentary  form  of  shelter  is  the  screen 
the  fisherman  puts  up  on  the  ice  to  keep  off  the  wind. 
A  wall  without  a  roof  to  keep  off  the  winter's  blast,  — 
a  roof  without  a  wall  to  shield  from  the  summer  sun  ; 
here  are  the  beginnings  of  domestic  architecture. 

Those  screens  of  sail-cloth  fastened  to  two  poles, 
which  I  see  every  winter  from  my  parlor  windows,  re 
tail  the  old  delight  of  boyish  days,  in  fishing  through 
the  ice.  It  was  not  sport  of  a  lofty  order,  but  it  had 
a  pleasure  in  it  for  unsophisticated  youth,  to  whom  the 
trout  was  an  unknown  animal,  and  the  fly  a  curious 
thing  to  read  about  in  "  The  Complete  Angler."  This 
is,  or  was,  the  order  of  winter  fishing. 

Your  tackle  shall  be  a  heavy  sinker,  with  a  wire 
running  through  it,  with  a  hook  suspended  to  each  end 
of  the  wire.  The  end  of  your  line  shall  be  fastened 
to  one  end  of  a  half-parenthesis  of  wooden  hoop  ),  the 
other  being  thrust  into  a  hole  just  at  the  edge  of  the 
opening  in  the  ice  through  which  you  fish.  Your  bait 
is  a  most  ill-favored,  flat,  fringed,  naked  worm,  dug 
out  of  the  mud  of  the  rivcr-l>ank. 

Plump  go  sinker  and  baited  hooks  through  the  ob- 


THE   SEASONS.  181 

long  square  opening,  down,  down,  until  the  line  hangs 
straight  from  the  end  of  the  curved  elastic  hoop.  Pres 
ently  bob  goes  the  hoop,  —  bob,  —  bob,  —  bob,  —  bob- 
b-b-b-b  !  PuU  up,  pull  up !  Oo  !  Oo !  how  cold ! 

There  is  your  prize,  a  tomcod,  or  Tomcodus,  as 
Cuvier  has  it,  and  a  meaner  little  fish  never  rewarded 
an  angler.  Two  thousand  bushels  of  them  used  to  be 
taken  annually  at  Watertown,  —  in  nets  of  course,  — 
and  sold  to  the  wretched  inhabitants  of  the  neighbor 
ing  city. 

Try  once  more.  Ah !  there  you  have  a  couple  of 
smelts  on  your  hooks.  That  will  do,  —  the  smelt  is  a 
gentleman's  fish ;  the  other  is  of  ignoble  style  and  des 
tiny.  I  cannot  make  this  river  fishing  as  poetical  as 
Thoreau  has  made  pickerel  fishing  on  Walden,  yet  it 
is  not  without  its  attractions.  The  crunching  of  the 
ice  at  the  edges  of  the  river  as  the  tide  rises  and 
falls,  the  little  cluster  of  tent-like  screens  on  the  frozen 
desert,  the  excitement  of  watching  the  springy  hoops, 
the  mystery  of  drawing  up  life  from  silent  unseen 
depths,  and  the  rivalry  with  neighboring  fishermen,  are 
pleasant  recollections  enough  to  account  for  the  pains 
taken  often  with  small  result.  But  fishing  is  an  emo 
tional  and  not  a  commercial  employment.  There  is 
our  West  Boston  Bridge,  which  I  rake  with  my  opera- 
glass  from  my  window,  which  I  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  crossing  since  the  time  when  the  tall  masts  of 
schooners  and  sloops  at  the  Cambridge  end  of  it  used 
to  frighten  me,  being  a  very  little  child.  Year  after 
year  the  boys  and  the  men,  black  and  white,  may  be 
seen  fishing  over  its  rails,  as  hopefully  as  if  the  river 
were  full  of  salmon.  At  certain  seasons  there  will  be 
now  and  then  captured  a  youthful  and  inexperienced 
codfish,  always,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  of  quite  triv- 


182        PAGES    FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

ial  dimensions.  The  fame  of  the  exploit  has  no 
sooner  gone  abroad,  than  the  enthusiasts  of  the  art 
come  flocking  down  to  the  river  and  cast  their  lines  in 
side  by  side,  until  they  look  like  a  row  of  harp-strings 
for  number.  That  a  codfish  is  once  in  a  while  caught 
I  have  asserted  to  be  a  fact ;  but  I  have  often  watched 
the  anglers,  and  do  not  remember  ever  seeing  one 
drawn  from  the  water,  or  even  any  unequivocal  symp 
tom  of  a  bite.  The  spiny  sculpin  and  the  flabby, 
muddy  flounder  are  the  common  rewards  of  the  an 
gler's  toil.  Do  you  happen  to  know  these  fish  ? 

With  all  its  inconveniences,  winter  is  a  cheerful 
season  to  people  who  are  in  comfortable  circumstances 
and  have  open  fire-places.  A  house  without  these  is 
like  a  face  without  eyes,  and  that  never  smiles.  I  have 
seen  respectability  and  amiability  grouped  over  the 
air-tight  stove ;  I  have  seen  virtue  and  intelligence 
hovering  over  the  register ;  but  I  have  never  seen  true 
happiness  in  a  family  circle  where  the  faces  were  not 
illuminated  by  the  blaze  of  an  open  fire-place. 

In  one  of  those  European  children's  books  which  we 
used  to  read  was  a  pleasant  story  which,  next  to  "  Eyes 
and  No  Eyes,"  I  remember  with  most  gratitude  of  all 
those  that  carried  a  moral  with  them.  The  boy  of 
whom  it  tells  is  discovered  sporting  among  the  daisies 
and  cowslips  and  lambkins.  He  takes  out  his  tablets 
(why  did  n't  American  boys  carry  tablets  ?  why  did  n't 
/  have  tablets  ?)  and  writes,  "  Oh  that  it  were  always 
Spring!  "  By  and  by  enters  luxurious  Summer  with 
her  full-blown  glories,  and  out  come  the  precious  tab 
lets  again  to  receive  the  inscription,  "  Oh  that  it  were 
always  Summer !  "  The  harvest  moon  shines  at  length, 
bringing  with  it  the  ripe  fulness  of  the  year,  including 


THE   SEASONS.  183 

the  fruits  of  the  orchard  and  garden ;  which  so  pleases 
the  young  gentleman  with  the  tablets,  that  he  writes 
once  more,  "  Oh  that  it  were  always  Autumn !  "  And 
at  last,  when  the  ice  is  thick  enough  to  slide  upon,  and 
there  is  snow  enough  to  make  a  snow-ball,  and  the  cold 
has  made  him  ruddy  and  lively,  this  forgetful  young 
person  lugs  out  his  tablets  for  the  fourth  time  and 
writes  thereon,  "  Oh  that  it  were  always  Winter ! " 

I  am  sure  I  got  a  healthy  optimism  out  of  that  story 
which  has  lasted  me  to  this  day.  But  for  grown  peo 
ple  there  is  nothing  that  makes  the  seasons  and  the 
year  so  interesting  as  to  watch  and  especially  to  keep 
record  of  the  changes  by  which  Nature  marks  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  great  ocean  of  sunshine  which  over 
spreads  the  earth.  I  have  thrown  together  a  few  dis 
cursive  hints ;  but  if  you  wish  to  go  a  little  farther, 
read  White  of  Selborne,  the  pattern  of  local  observ 
ers  ;  follow  Miss  Cooper  in  her  most  interesting  walks 
from  March  to  February ;  squat  with  Thoreau  in  his 
hovel  by  the  side  of  Walden  ;  ramble  with  keen-eyed 
Mr.  Higginson  among  the  flowers  of  April ;  listen  to 
Mr.  Cabot's  admirably  told  story  of  u  Our  Birds  and 
their  Ways ; "  enjoy  the  enthusiastic  descriptions  of 
Mr.  John  Burroughs  expatiating  among  the  songsters, 
and  marvel  at  Mr.  Wilson  Flagg's  rendering  of  their 
notes  in  musical  characters,  —  the  last  four  writers  all 
to  be  found  in  the  "•  Atlantic  Monthly."  Search  through 
the  thirty-two  volumes  of  the  "  American  Almanac," 
for  records  of  the  flowering  of  trees,  —  taking  care  not 
to  overlook  Professor  Lovering's  learned  article  on  Me 
teorology  in  the  thirty-second  volume  (for  1861).  Un 
earth  the  contribution  of  Dr.  Bigelow,  and  the  meteor 
ological  tables  of  Dr.  Holyoke,  buried  in  the  quartos  of 
the  American  Academy,  and  get  Professor  Cleaveland's 


184       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

weather-history  of  fifty-two  years,  published  by  the 
Smithsonian  Institution.  And  do  not  neglect  to  seek 
out  the  Reports  of  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  New 
York,  full  of  detailed  accounts  of  the  seasons  in  differ 
ent  parts  of  that  State  through  a  long  series  of  years. 
If  you  would  institute  comparisons  with  Europe,  you 
can  begin  with  Quetelet's  series  of  observations  on  the 
leafing  and  flowering  of  plants  in  the  Memoirs  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Belgium.  By  the  time  you  have 
ransacked  these  books,  you  will  have  got  on  the  track 
of  others,  and  will  have  learned  that  here  is  room  for 
a  most  fascinating  labor  in  a  branch  of  knowledge  that 
comes  home  to  our  every-day  life,  —  the  construction 
of  a  natural  calendar  for  different  latitudes,  which 
shall  be  to  our  common  almanac  columns  of  months 
what  the  natural  system  of  Jussieu  is  to  the  artificial 
arrangement  of  Linnaeus. 

And  so,  my  fellow-spectator  at  the  great  show  of  the 
Four  Seasons,  I  wish  you  a  pleasant  seat  through  the 
performances,  and  that  you  may  see  as  many  repeti 
tions  of  the  same  as  it  is  good  for  you  to  witness,  which 
I  doubt  not  will  be  arranged  for  you  by  the  Manager 
of  the  Exhibition.  After  a  time  you  will  notice  that 
the  light  fatigues  the  eyes,  so  that  by  degrees  they 
grow  dim,  and  the  ear  becomes  a  little  dull  to  the 
music,  and  possibly  you  may  find  yourself  somewhat 
weary,  —  for  many  of  the  seats  are  very  far  from  being 
well  cushioned,  and  not  a  few  find  their  bones  aching 
after  they  have  seen  the  white  drop-curtain  lifted  and 
let  down  a  certain  number  of  times.  There  are  no 
checks  given  you  as  you  pass  out,  by  which  you  can 
return  to  the  place  you  have  left.  But  we  are  told  that 
there  is  another  exhibition  to  follow,  in  which  the  seen- 


THE  SEASONS.  185 

ery  will  be  far  lovelier,  and  the  music  infinitely  sweeter, 
and  to  which  will  be  asked  many  who  have  sat  on  the 
hard  benches,  and  a  few  who  have  been  in  the  gilded 
boxes  at  this  preliminary  show.  Dear  reader,  who  hast 
followed  me  so  graciously  through  this  poor  programme 
of  the  fleeting  performance,  I  thank  thee  for  thy  cour 
tesy,  and  let  me  venture  to  hope  that  we  shall  both  be 
admitted  to  that  better  entertainment,  and  that  thou 
and  I  may  be  seated  not  far  from  each  other  I 


VI. 

TALK  CONCERNING  THE  HUMAN  BODY  AND  ITS 
MANAGEMENT.' 

IT  is  no  new  thing  for  an  almanac  to  deal  with  the 
various  branches  of  medical  science.  The  signs  of  the 
zodiac  have  long  been  supposed  to  have  their  corre 
sponding  divisions  in  the  human  body. 

In  the  old  treatise  before  me,  dated  1522,  the  twelve 
symbols  marking  the  course  of  the  sun  through  the 
heavens  are  represented  as  grouped  on  and  about  a 
full-length  male  figure.  The  Ram  is  seated  on  the 
top  of  the  head ;  the  Bull  upon  the  neck  ;  the  Twins 
slant  gracefully  upward,  reclining  along  the  two  ex 
tended  arms ;  the  Lion  stands  in  front  of  the  heart ; 
while  the  Virgin,  to  whose  charge  we  should  have  as 
signed  that  organ,  presides  over  the  less  sentimental 
domain  of  the  stomach.  So  through  the  several  signs 
and  the  related  regions  of  the  body,  until  we  reach 
the  feet,  where  the  Water-bearer,  Aquarius,  empties 
his  vase  over  the  Dolphins  who  represent  the  Fishes 
of  February. 

The  same  fanciful  doctrine  survives  to  our  own  time, 
and  may  be  found  in  almanacs  of  the  present  year,  and 
particularly  in  one  which  is  slipped  under  our  door 
steps  by  a  philanthropist  who  sells  pills  and  potions, 
that  he  may  obtain  the  means  to  give  away  his  in- 
•  First  printed  in  the  Atlantic  Almanac. 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      187 

structive  calendars,  —  unless  it  may  be  supposed  that 
he  gives  them  away  that  he  may  sell  more  pills  and 
potions. 

Almanacs,  too,  are  very  commonly  repositories  of 
medical  information  in  the  form  of  recipes  and  gra 
tuitous  advice  of  ail  sorts,  so  that  the  reader  need  not 
think  it  a  strange  innovation  when  he  finds  by  the  side 
of  agricultural  and  horticultural  admonitions,  or  in 
place  of  them,  some  talk  about  the  tree  of  human  life, 
which,  like  its  vegetable  brothers  and  sisters,  must  be 
well  cared  for,  or  it  will  not  flourish  and  bloom,  but 
which,  unlike  them,  never  grows  after  it  is  replanted 
in  the  soil  from  which  it  was  taken. 


I. 
FIXED  CONDITIONS. 

We  will  begin  our  talk  with  a  few  words  on  ANI 
MAL  CHEMISTRY. 

Take  one  of  these  boiled  eggs,  which  has  been  rav 
ished  from  a  brilliant  possible  future,  and  instead  of 
sacrificing  it  to  a  common  appetite,  devote  it  to  the 
nobler  hunger  for  knowledge.  You  know  that  the 
effect  of  boiling  has  been  to  harden  it,  and  that  if  a 
little  overdone  it  becomes  quite  firm  in  texture,  the 
change  pervading  both  the  white  and  the  yolk.  Care 
ful  observation  shows  that  this  change  takes  place  at 
about  150°  of  Fahrenheit's  thermometer. — The  sub 
stance  which  thus  hardens  or  coagulates  is  called 
albumen.  As  this  forms  the  bulk  of  the  egg,  it  must 
be  the  raw  material  of  the  future  chicken.  There  is 
some  oil,  with  a  little  coloring  matter,  and  there  is  the 


188       PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

earthy  shell,  with  a  thin  skin  lining  it ;  but  all  these 
are  in  small  quantity  compared  to  the  albumen.  You 
see  then  that  an  egg  contains  substances  which  may  be 
coagulated  into  your  breakfast  by  hot  water,  or  into  a 
chicken  by  the  milder  prolonged  warmth  of  the  moth 
er's  body. 

We  can  push  the  analysis  further  without  any  la  I  >- 
oratory  other  than  our  breakfast-room. 

At  the  larger  end  of  the  egg,  as  you  may  have  no 
ticed  on  breaking  it,  is  a  small  space  containing  noth 
ing  but  air,  a  mixture  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen,  as  you 
know.  If  you  use  a  silver  spoon  in  eating  an  egg,  it 
becomes  discolored,  as  you  may  have  observed,  which 
is  one  of  the  familiar  effects  of  sulphur.  It  is  this 
which  gives  a  neglected  egg  its  peculiar  aggressive  at 
mospheric  effects.  Heat  the  whole  contents  of  the 
shell,  or,  for  convenience,  a  small  portion  of  them, 
gently  for  a  while,  and  you  will  have  left  nothing  but 
a  thin  scale,  representing  only  a  small  fraction  of  the 
original  weight  of  the  contents  before  drying.  That 
which  has  been  driven  off  is  water,  as  you  may  easily 
see  by  letting  the  steam  condense  on  a  cold  surface. 
But  water,  as  you  remember,  consists  of  oxygen  and 
hydrogen.  Now  lay  this  dried  scale  on  the  shovel  and 
burn  it  until  it  turns  black.  What  you  have  on  the 
shovel  is  animal  charcoal  or  carbon.  If  you  burn  this 
black  crust  to  ashes,  a  chemist  will,  on  examining 
these  ashes,  find  for  you  small  quantities  of  various 
salts,  containing  phosphorus,  chlorine,  potash,  soda, 
magnesia,  in  various  combinations,  and  a  little  iron. 
You  can  burn  the  egg-shell  and  see  for  yourself  that 
it  becomes  changed  into  lime,  the  heat  driving  off  the 
carbonic  acid  which  made  it  a  carbonate. 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      189 

Oxygen.  Iron. 

Hydrogen.  Potash. 

Carbon.  Soda. 

Nitrogen.  Magnesia, 

Sulphur.  Phosphorus. 

Lime.  Chlorine. 

This  is  the  list  of  simple  elements  to  be  found  in  an 
egg.  You  have  detected  six  of  them  by  your  fireside 
chemistry ;  the  others  must  be  in  very  small  quan 
tity,  as  they  are  all  contained  in  the  pinch  of  ashes 
which  remains  after  you  have  burned  all  that  is  com 
bustible  in  your  egg. 

Now  this  egg  is  going,  or  rather  was  going,  to  be 
come  a  chicken ;  that  is,  an  animal  with  flesh  and 
blood  and  bones,  with  a  brain  and  nerves,  with  eyes 
ready  to  see  and  ears  ready  to  hear,  with  organs  all 
ready  to  go  to  work,  and  a  voice  ready  to  be  heard 
the  moment  it  is  let  out  of  its  shell.  The  elements  of 
the  egg  have  been  separated  and  recombined,  but  noth 
ing  has  been  added  to  them  except  what  may  have 
passed  through  the  shell.  Just  these  twelve  elements 
are  to  be  found  in  the  chicken,  no  more,  no  less. 

Just  these  same  twelve  elements,  with  the  merest 
traces  of  two  or  three  other  substances,  make  up  the 
human  body.  Expende  Hannibalem;  weigh  the  great 
general,  the  great  thinker,  bis  frame  also  may  be  re 
solved  into  a  breath  of  air,  a  wave  of  water,  a  charred 
cinder,  a  fragment  of  lime-salts,  and  a  few  grains  of 
mineral  and  saline  matter  which  the  earth  has  lent 
him,  all  easily  reducible  to  the  material  forms  enumer 
ated  in  this  brief  catalogue. 

All  these  simple  substances  which  make  up  the  egg, 
the  chicken,  the  human  body,  are  found  in  the  air,  the 


190       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

water,  or  the  earth.  All  living  things  borrow  their 
whole  bodies  from  inanimate  matter,  directly  or  indi 
rectly.  But  of  the  simple  substances  found  in  nature, 
not  more  than  a  quarter,  or  something  less  than  that, 
are  found  in  the  most  complex  living  body.  The 
forty-five  or  fifty  others  have  no  business  in  our  organ 
ization.  Thus  we  must  have  iron  in  our  blood,  but  we 
must  not  have  lead  in  it,  or  we  shall  be  liable  to  colic 
and  palsy.  Gold  and  silver  are  very  well  in  our  pock 
ets,  but  have  no  place  in  our  system.  Most  of  us  have 
seen  one  or  more  unfortunates  whose  skins  were  per 
manently  stained  of  a  dark  bluish  tint  in  consequence 
of  the  prolonged  use  of  a  preparation  of  silver  which 
has  often  been  prescribed  for  the  cure  of  epilepsy. 

This,  then,  is  the  great  fact  of  animal  chemistry  ;  a 
few  simple  substances,  borrowed  from  the  surrounding 
elements,  give  us  the  albumen  and  oil  and  other  con 
stituents  of  the  egg,  and,  arranging  themselves  differ 
ently  during  the  process  of  incubation,  form  all  the 
tissues  of  the  animal  body. 

Can  we  come  at  any  statement  as  simple  and  satis 
factory  with  reference  to  the  ANATOMY  of  the  animal 
body  ?  That  will  depend  upon  the  kind  of  anatomy 
we  wish  to  know  something  of. 

The  body  may  be  studied  as  the  geographer  studies 
the  earth,  or  as  the  geologist  studies  it.  A  surgeon  who 
is  to  operate  upon  any  part  must  make  a  very  careful 
study  of  its  geography.  A  very  slight  deviation  of 
his  knife  may  be  the  death  of  his  patient.  There  is 
no  short  and  easy  method  of  getting  at  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  particular  arrangements  of  all  the 
different  organs  of  the  body.  But  most  persons  have 
picked  up  some  idea  of  the  position  and  general  char- 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      191 

acters  of  the  most  important  among  them.  They  have 
seen  Yorick's  skull  in  the  hands  of  Hamlet,  and  the 
same  object  with  the  crossbones  on  monuments  or  in 
pictures.  They  have  even  a  notion  of  the  whole  skel 
eton,  derived,  perhaps,  from  the  New  England  Primer, 
or  Hans  Holbein's  Dance  of  Death.  The  aches  of 
childhood  taught  them  where  their  alimentary  canal 
belongs,  and  the  palpitations  of  adolescence  fixed  the 
situation  of  the  heart.  A  smattering  of  phrenology 
has  given  them  a  notion  of  the  brain.  The  ballet  has 
made  them  full  learned  enough  in  the  anatomy  of  the 
leg ;  and  if  they  have  ever  swung  a  dumb-bell  or 
pulled  an  oar,  they  can  hardly  have  remained  ignorant 
of  the  form  and  connections  of  such  muscles  as  the 
biceps  and  the  pectoral.  Everybody  knows  the  artery 
which  beats  at  the  wrist  and  gives  the  pulse,  the  veins 
that  stand  out  on  the  arm  or  hand,  the  nerve  that  is 
numbed  by  a  blow  on  the  elbow.  In  short,  most  per 
sons  have  a  tolerable  conception  of  the  geography  of 
the  body,  and  do  not  care  to  go  through  the  tedious 
and  uninviting  details  which  most  medical  men  master 
more  or  less  imperfectly,  to  forget  in  great  measure  as 
soon  as  they  become  engaged  in  practice. 

But  the  geology  of  the  body,  the  list  of  anatomical 
elements  into  which  the  microscope  easily  resolves  it, 
is  quite  another  matter.  Of  this  most  unprofessional 
persons  know  absolutely  nothing,  yet  it  is  full  of  in 
terest,  and  made  plain  enough  with  the  greatest  ease 
to  any  one  who  will  give  a  few  hours  to  its  study  under 
the  guidance  of  an  intelligent  student  who  has  a  micro 
scope  of  moderate  power,  and  knows  how  to  use  it  on 
the  objects  required,  which  are  obtained  with  great 
ease,  and  have  nothing  to  excite  repugnance,  if  for  no 
other  reason,  because  they  are  employed  in  almost  in 
finitesimal  quantities. 


192       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

A  slight  prick  of  the  finger  with  a  cambric-needle 
supplies  a  point,  not  a  drop,  of  blood,  which  we  spread 
on  a  slip  of  glass,  cover  with  another  much  thinner 
piece  of  glass,  and  look  at  in  the  microscope.  You 
see  a  vast  number  of  flattened  disks  rolling  round  in 
a  clear  fluid,  or  piled  in  columns  like  rouleaux  of  coin. 
Each  of  these  is  about  one  fiftieth  of  the  diameter  of 
the  dot  over  this  i,  or  the  period  at  the  end  of  this 
sentence,  as  it  will  be  seen  in  fine  print.  You  have 
many  millions  of  millions  of  them  circulating  in  your 
body,  —  I  am  almost  afraid  to  say  how  many  by  cal 
culation.  Here  and  there  is  a  pearly  looking  globule, 
a  little  larger  than  one  of  the  disks.  These  are  the 
red  and  the  white  blood  corpuscles,  which  are  carried 
along  by  the  pale  fluid  to  which  the  red  ones  give  its 
color,  as  the  grains  of  sand  are  whirled  along  with  a 
rapid  torrent.  The  blood,  then,  you  see,  is  not  like 
red  ink,  but  more  like  water  with  red  and  white  cur 
rants,  one  of  the  latter  to  some  hundreds  of  the 
former,  floating  in  it,  not  dissolved  in  i  t . 

The  solids  of  the  body  arc  made  up  chiefly  of  cells 
or  particles  originally  rounded,  often  more  or  less 
altered  in  form,  or  of  fibres.  Here  is  a  minute  scrap 
of  fat,  half  as  large  as  the  head  of  a  pin,  perhaps. 
You  see  in  the  microscope  that  it  consists  of  a  group 
of  little  vesicles  or  cells,  looking  like  miniature  soap- 
bubbles.  They  are  large,  comparatively,  —  eight  of 
them  in  a  row  would  stretch  across  the  dot  of  the  i 
which  it  took  fifty  blood  disks  to  span.  That  part  of 
the  brain  with  which  we  think  is  made  up  of  cells  of  a 
different  aspect.  They  are  granular,  instead  of  being 
clear  like  the  fat-cells.  Each  of  them  has  a  spot  upon 
it  called  its  nucleus,  and  that  has  a  smaller  spot,  called 
the  nucleolus.  Turn  down  your  lower  lip  and  scrape 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.       193 

it  very  lightly  with  the  blade  of  a  pocket-knife.  Ex 
amine  what  it  removes,  on  the  slip  of  glass,  as  before. 
Here  is  a  cell  again,  with  its  nucleus  and  nucleolus, 
but  the  whole  flattened  out,  so  that  the  spot  looks  like 
the  boss  of  a  shield.  All  the  internal  surfaces  of  the 
body  are  lined  with  altered  cells  like  these,  except 
that  some  are  not  flattened,  but  round  or  elongated, 
and  that  in  some  internal  passages,  as  in  the  air-tubes 
of  the  lungs,  they  have  little  hair-like  appendages 
called  cilia,  which  keep  moving  all  the  time  by  some 
unknown  power  of  their  own.  Here  is  a  shred  from 
an  oyster  just  opened ;  you  see  a  row  of  cilia  in  a  per 
petual  ripple  like  that  of  a  field  of  grain  in  a  light 
breeze.  Once  more,  here  is  a  little  slice  of  cartilage 
from  the  joint  we  are  to  see  on  the  dinner-table  by  and 
by.  Cells  again,  spotted  or  nucleated  cells,  scattered 
like  plums  in  a  pudding  through  a  solid  substance 
which  has  no  particular  structure,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  but  looks  like  ground  glass. 

Now  let  us  examine  some  fibres.  These  fine,  wavy 
threads  are  the  material  employed  by  nature  for  a 
larger  variety  of  purposes  than  any  other  anatomical 
element.  They  look  like  silk  floss  as  you  see  them 
here.  But  they  take  many  aspects.  Made  into  bands 
and  cords,  they  tie  the  joints  as  ligaments,  and  form 
the  attachments  of  muscles  as  tendons.  Woven  into 
dense  membranes,  they  wrap  the  limbs  in  firm  envel 
opes,  sheathing  each  separate  muscle,  and  binding  the 
whole  muscles  of  a  part  in  a  common  covering. 
Shaped  into  stout  bags,  they  furnish  protections  for 
the  brain,  the  heart,  the  eye,  and  other  organs.  In 
looser  masses,  they  form  the  packing  of  all  the  deli 
cate  machinery  of  life,  separating  the  parts  from  each 
other,  and  yet  uniting  them  as  a  whole,  much  as  the 


194       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

cement  at  once  separates  and  unites  the  stones  or 
bricks  of  a  wall,  or  more  nearly  as  the  cotton-wool 
packs  the  fragile  articles  it  is  used  to  protect. 

These  other  fibres,  coarser,  curling  at  the  ends  like 
the  tendrils  of  a  vine,  are  used  to  form  many  of  the 
elastic  parts  of  the  animal  machine.  They  are  em 
ployed  as  labor-saving  contrivances  where  parts  that 
have  been  displaced  are  to  be  restored,  just  as  india- 
rubber  bands  are  used  to  shut  doors  after  us.  A  stout 
bundle  of  them  stretches  along  the  back  of  an  ox's 
neck,  and  helps  to  lift  his  head  after  he  has  done  graz 
ing.  All  our  arteries  are  rendered  elastic  by  a  coat 
ing  of  these  fibres. 

On  the  point  of  this  pin  is  a  particle  of  red  flesh 
from  the  sirloin  which  is  to  be  on  our  table.  The 
microscopic  threads  of  which  our  instrument  shows  it 
is  made  up  are  exactly  like  those  which  form  all  our 
own  muscles,  the  organs  of  all  our  voluntary  acts  of 
motion  and  of  speech.  See  how  every  one  of  them  is 
crossed  by  closely  set,  cobweb-like  lines,  as  if  it  were  a 
ladder  for  invisible  monads  to  climb  upon.  These 
striped  filaments  are  the  servants  of  the  brain.  To 
each  bundle  of  them  runs  a  nervous  telegraphic  cord, 
which  compels  it  to  every  act  good  or  bad  which  it 
does,  to  every  word  right  or  wrong  which  it  utters. 
Your  muscles  will  murder  as  readily  as  they  will  em 
brace  a  fellow-creature.  They  will  curse  as  willingly 
as  they  will  bless,  if  your  brain  telegraphs  them  to  do 
it.  Your  red  flesh  has  no  more  conscience  or  compas 
sion  than  a  tiger's  or  a  hyena's. 

But  here  we  have  taken  up  on  the  point  of  the  pin, 
and  placed  on  the  glass  slide,  a  scarcely  visible  frag 
ment  from  another  familiar  form  of  flesh  known  as 
tripe,  which,  as  you  are  probably  aware,  is  the  pre- 


I 
THE  HUMAN   BODY    AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      195 

pared  stomach  of  the  animal  which  furnished  your  sir 
loin.  If  it  is  not  on  your  own  list  of  delicacies,  you 
may  remember  that  Katharine  was  not  too  proud  to 
beg  for  it  in  the  "  Taming  of  the  Shrew."  The  stom 
ach  can  move,  as  the  facts  of  every  day,  not  to  speak 
of  more  convincing  nautical  experiences,  have  prob 
ably  convinced  you.  But  like  other  internal  parts,  it 
will  neither  move  nor  be  quiet  at  your  bidding.  And 
in  correspondence  with  this  difference  in  its  endow 
ments,  this  entire  independence  of  the  will  in  contrast 
with  the  complete  submission  to  it  of  the  outer  mus 
cles,  such  as  those  of  the  limbs,  you  will  notice  a  dif 
ference  of  structure  at  the  first  glance.  The  involun 
tary  muscular  fibre  has  not  the  delicate  transverse 
stripes  of  the  voluntary.  It  is  made  up  of  separate 
spindle-shaped  threads,  spliced,  as  it  were,  to  each 
other. 

We  want  a  bit  of  nerve  to  look  at  in  the  microscope. 
We  can  get  that  very  easily  at  the  provision  stall  where 
we  get  our  dinners,  and  have  found  our  specimens  so 
far,  but  there  is  a  mischievous  schoolboy  in  the  house 
who  has,  without  meaning  it,  become  the  purveyor  of 
science.  Nature  has  organized  one  of  her  creatures  so 
admirably  for  the  purposes  of  the  physiologist  that  Mr. 
Bergh  himself  would  hardly  deny  that  there  was  a 
meaning  in  it.  One  cannot  help  thinking  what  a  fes 
tival  of  science  the  Plague  of  Frogs  must  have  been 
to  the  Brown-Se'quards  of  the  time  of  Moses.  That 
luckless  animal,  which  has  storks  and  mice  and  snakes 
and  anglers  and  boys  as  its  natural  enemies,  displays 
some  of  its  nerves  so  beautifully  and  liberally  on  the 
most  superficial  anatomical  inspection,  that  it  becomes 
in  consequence  of  this  indiscreet  exposure  a  foredoomed 
and  necessary  victim  of  experiment.  Our  schoolboy 


196        PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

has  just  brought  home  what  he  calls  a  "  Bull-paddy," 
which  he  has  slain  with  a  stone  after  the  manner  of 
boys  of  .<Esop'8  day,  and  ours  and  all  days.  From  this 
victim  we  have  snipped  off  this  little  piece  of  nerve, 
looking  like  a  bit  of  white  thread.  It  seems  at  first  as 
if  it  were  simply  fibrous,  but  examining  it  in  the  mi 
croscope  we  see  that  each  fibre  is  a  tube,  with  thick 
walls  and  a  kind  of  pith  in  its  centre,  —  looking  some 
thing  like  a  thermometer-tube  with  transparent  con 
tents.  Through  these  canals  flows  in  the  knowledge 
of  all  that  is  outside  of  ourselves,  nay,  of  our  own 
bodies,  to  our  consciousness,  which  has  its  seat  in  those 
granular,  spotted  cells  of  the  brain  before  mentioned. 
Through  these  stream  forth,  also,  from  the  brain-cells, 
the  mandates  of  the  will. 

These  are  the  anatomical  elements  of  the  soft  parts 
of  the  animal  body,  —  of  our  own  frames.  The  bones 
are  more  than  half  mineral  substance,  lime  being  their 
basis.  Our  earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle  is  built 
upon  a  rock.  The  teeth  are  still  more  largely  mineral 
in  their  composition,  yet  both  bones  and  teeth  are  pene 
trated  by  canals  which  carry  nourishment  through  their 
substance.  A  very  thin  cross-section  of  the  arm  or 
leg  bone  shows  a  network  of  little  tubules  radiating 
from  a  round  hole,  which  is  one  of  the  larger  canals 
seen  cut  transversely.  The  arrangement  reminds  one 
of  a  spider's  web.  A  similar  section  of  a  tooth  shows 
that  it  is  penetrated  by  tubes  that  radiate  from  the 
pulp  cavity,  and  which  appear  to  contain  delicate  ex 
tensions  of  the  pulp,  —  which  fact  sufficiently  accounts 
for  the  lively  sensations  attending  the  filling  of  a 
tooth. 

Blood  corpuscles,  red  and  white. 

Cells,  rmi nd;  flattened;  elongated;  provided  with  cilia. 


THE   HUMAN*  BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      197 

Fibres,  <  Fine,  wavy,  —  (connective  tissue,  etc.) 

(passive)          |  Coarse,  curly,  —  (elastic  tissue.) 

Fibres,  (  Striped  muscle,  —  (voluntary.) 

(active)  (  Unstriped  muscle,  —  (involuntary.) 

Fibres,  > 

/       j     i:     \    r  Tubular,  forming  the  nerves. 

(conducting)   ) 

Hard  tissues.  —  Bone.     Teeth. 

Fluids  are  all  largely  made  up  of  water. 

To  these  may  be  added  that  simple,  structureless, 
solid  substance,  looking  like  ground  glass,  which  forms, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  basis  of  cartilage.  Also  granules, 
specks  of  indeterminate  form,  but  always  of  minute 
dimensions. 

Just  as  we  have  seen  the  chemical  elements  combined 
to  form  the  living  tissues,  we  find  these  anatomical  ele 
ments  combined  to  form  the  organs.  The  demonstra 
tion  of  them  is  simple  to  the  last  degree.  The  speci 
mens  may  all  be  brought  in  on  a  half -dime  for  a  silver 
waiter,  and  an  hour  or  two  will  be  enough  to  give  a 
satisfactory  exhibition  of  the  whole  series. 

Let  us  now  see  if  we  can  bring  down  the  most  gen 
eral  facts  of  LIFE  to  a  statement  as  simple  as  those  in 
which  we  have  attempted  to  include  the  plans  of  com 
position  and  structure. 

We  cannot  use  our  bodies  in  any  manner  without 
wearing  away  some  portions  of  them,  or  so  far  dete 
riorating  these  portions  that  they  become  unfit  for 
their  duties.  These  must,  therefore,  be  got  rid  of,  and 
their  place  supplied  by  fresh  materials.  You  have 
only  to  overwork  and  underfeed  a  horse  or  a  human 
being,  and  you  find  that  the  subject  of  the  experiment 
loses  weight  rapidly ;  and  if  it  is  carried  too  far,  be 
comes  the  victim  of  it. 


198        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  we  change  our  bodies  as  we 
change  our  clothes.  It  was  an  old  fancy,  belonging  to 
the  category  of  the  seven  stars,  the  seven  ages,  the 
seven  days  of  the  week,  and  the  seven  sleepers,  that  we 
are  made  over  again  every  seven  years.  But  a  strong 
man,  leading  an  active  life,  takes  between  two  and 
three  pounds  of  dry  food  daily,  and  five  or  six  of  liquids. 
He  receives  into  his  lungs  between  four  and  five  thou 
sand  gallons  of  air  every  twenty-four  hours,  of  which 
he  absorbs  between  two  and  three  pounds.  In  a  year, 
therefore,  such  a  man  takes  into  his  system  about  three 
thousand  pounds  of  foreign  material,  or  twenty  times 
his  own  weight.  All  of  this,  with  insignificant  excep 
tions  has  become  a  part  of  his  own  fluids  or  solids.  That 
is,  if  he  weighs  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  he  has 
been  made  over  twenty  times  in  the  course  of  a  year, 
or  as  often  as  once  every  two  or  three  weeks.  But 
the  change  occurs  much  more  rapidly  in  some  parts 
than  in  others,  —  in  the  blood,  the  hair,  the  cuticle, 
much  more  rapidly  than  in  the  bones  or  the  teeth,  so 
far  as  our  observation  extends.  Yet,  that  the  process 
of  growth  is  pretty  active  even  in  the  bones  is  rendered 
probable  by  the  rapidity  with  which  a  fracture  unites, 
especially  in  young  and  healthy  persons.  The  dentists 
will  tell  you  that  even  the  teeth  are  capable  of  repair 
ing  their  own  damages  to  a  certain  extent,  which  im 
plies  that  they  too  are  changed  more  or  less,  like  other 
parts. 

Just  so  long  as  this  exchange  of  materials  between 
the  organized  being,  vegetable  or  animal,  goes  on,  it 
is  said  to  be  alive.  Provision  is  made  for  its  being 
constantly  kept  up  by  the  adjustment  of  the  brute  uni 
verse  to  its  growing  and  conscious  tenants,  plants  and 
animals. 


THE  HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      199 

Every  organized  being  always  lives  immersed  in  a 
strong  solution  of  its  own  elements. 

Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  air  plant,  the  solu 
tion  contains  all  its  elements ;  but  in  higher  plants,  and 
in  animals  generally,  some  of  the  principal  ones  only. 
Take  our  own  bodies,  and  we  find  the  atmosphere  con 
tains  the  oxygen  and  the  nitrogen,  of  which  we  are  so 
largely  made  up,  as  its  chief  constituents ;  the  hydro 
gen,  also,  in  its  watery  vapor,  the  carbon  in  its  carbonic 
acid.  What  our  air-bath  does  not  furnish  us  we  must 
take  in  the  form  of  nourishment,  supplied  through  the 
digestive  organs.  But  the  first  food  we  take,  after  we 
have  set  up  for  ourselves,  is  air,  and  the  last  food  we 
take  is  air  also.  We  are  all  chameleons  in  our  diet, 
as  we  are  all  salamanders  in  our  habitats,  inasmuch  as 
we  live  always  in  the  fire  of  our  own  smouldering  com 
bustion  ;  a  gentle  but  constant  flame,  fanned  every  day 
by  the  same  forty  hogsheads  of  air  which  furnish  us, 
not  with  our  daily  bread,  which  we  can  live  more  than 
a  day  without  touching,  but  with  our  momentary,  and 
oftener  than  momentary  aliment,  without  which  we 
cannot  live  five  minutes. 

We  are  perishing  and  being  born  again,  at  every 
instant.  We  do  literally  enter  over  and  over  again 
into  the  womb  of  that  great  mother  from  whom  we 
get  our  bones  and  flesh  and  blood  and  marrow.  "  I 
die  daily,"  is  true  of  all  that  live.  If  we  cease  to  die, 
particle  by  particle,  and  to  be  born  anew  in  the  same 
proportion,  the  whole  movement  of  life  comes  to  an 
end ;  and  swift,  universal,  irreparable  decay  resolves 
our  frames  into  the  parent  elements.  I  can  find  the 
truth  better  stated  by  a  great  divine  than  in  any  book 
of  Physiology  that  I  remember :  — 

"  Every  day's  necessity  calls  for  a  reparation  of  that 


200       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

portion  which  Death  fed  on  all  night,  when  we  lay  in 
his  lap,  and  slept  in  his  outer  chambers.  The  very 
spirits  of  a  man  prey  upon  the  daily  portion  of  bread 
and  flesh,  and  every  meal  is  a  rescue  from  one  death, 
and  lays  up  for  another ;  and  while  we  think  a  thought 
we  die ;  and  the  clock  strikes,  and  reckons  on  our  por 
tion  of  eternity ;  we  form  our  words  with  the  breath  of 
our  nostrils ;  we  have  the  less  to  live  upon  for  every 
word  we  speak." 

The  products  of  the  internal  fire  which  consumes  us 
over  and  over  again  every  year  pass  off  mainly  in 
smoke  and  steam  from  the  lungs  and  the  skin.  The 
smoke  is  invisible  only,  because  the  combustion  is  so 
perfect.  The  steam  is  plain  enough  in  our  breaths  on 
a  frosty  morning  ;  and  an  over-driven  horse  will  show 
us  on  a  larger  scale  the  cloud  that  is  always  arising 
from  our  own  bodies. 

Man  walks,  then,  not  only  in  a  vain  show,  but 
wrapped  in  an  uncelestial  aureole  of  his  own  material 
exhalations.  A  great  mist  of  gases  and  of  vapor  rises 
day  and  night  from  the  whole  realm  of  living  nature. 
The  water  and  the  carbonic  acid  which  animals  exhale 
become  the  food  of  plants,  whose  leaves  are  at  once 
lungs  and  mouths.  The  vegetable  world  reverses  the 
breathing  process  of  the  animal  creation,  restoring  the 
elements  which  that  has  combined  and  rendered  effete 
for  its  own  purposes,  to  their  original  condition.  The 
salt-water  ocean  is  a  great  aquarium.  The  air  ocean 
in  which  we  live  is  a  "  Wardian  case,"  of  larger  di 
mensions. 

We  are  ready  now  to  attempt  a  definition  which  has 
tasked  the  ingenuity  of  so  many  physiologists,  that  it 
is  like  throwing  a  pebble  on  a  cairn,  to  add  a  new  one 
to  the  number.  I  have  long  been  in  the  habit  of  giv- 


THE   HUMAN   BODY  AND  ITS   MANAGEMENT.      201 

ing  it  as  follows,  hardly  knowing  whether  it  was  my 
own,  or  conveyed,  as  the  wise  call  a  process  not  unfa 
miliar  to  lecturers  and  writers  :  — 

LIFE  is  the  state  of  an  organized  being  in  which  it 
maintains,  or  is  capable  of  maintaining,  its  structural 
integrity  by  the  constant  interchange  of  elements  with 
the  surrounding  media. 

Death  is  the  final  cessation  of  that  state.  We  com 
monly  consider  it  as  taking  place  when  the  last  breath 
is  drawn.  To  expire  is,  in  our  ordinary  language,  the 
synonyme  of  to  die.  After  this  last  breath,  no  further 
interchange  of  material  between  the  body  and  the  sur 
rounding  elements  takes  place,  or  at  least  none  that 
tends  to  keep  the  organization  in  its  state  of  structural 
integrity. 

Still,  there  are  unused  materials  and  unexpended 
forces  which  sometimes  startle  us  by  their  manifesta 
tions  after  the  body  has  ceased  forever  to  be  the  tene 
ment  of  conscious  being.  It  is  not  the  whole  of  death 
to  "  die,"  in  its  physiological  any  more  than  in  its  spir 
itual  sense.  There  seems  to  be  good  reason  for  saying 
that  the  beard  and  hair  may  grow,  and  some  of  the 
secretions  continue  to  be  formed,  long  after  the  last 
breath  has  been  drawn.  The  heart  of  a  decapitated 
criminal  has  been  observed  throbbing  in  his  breast  one 
hour,  two  hours  and  a  half,  nay,  in  one  case  twenty- 
seven  hours  and  a  half,  after  the  axe  had  fallen.  Even 
the  severed  parts  contain  a  certain  lingering  vitality. 
Lord  Bacon  saw  the  heart  of  a  traitor  who  had  been 
executed  leap  for  some  minutes  after  it  had  been 
thrown  into  the  fire.  Still  more  startling  evidences 
of  life  surviving  death  have  been  recorded.  Dr.  Ben- 
net  Dowler  of  New  Orleans  has  related  very  curious 
facts  of  movements  occurring  in  the  inanimate  limbs  of 


202       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OP   LIFE. 

patients  who  had  died  of  cholera,  —  movements  so  reg 
ular  and  extensive  as  to  recall  the  experience  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner :  — 

"  The  body  of  ray  brother's  son 
Stood  by  me,  knee  to  knee  : 
The  body  and  I  pulled  at  one  rope, 
But  he  said  naught  to  me." 

From  this  glance  at  the  composition,  structure,  and 
conditions  of  life  belonging  to  organized  beings,  we  can 
make  several  very  plain  practical  inferences.  A  plant 
must  find  in  the  soil  any  elements  it  requires,  and 
which  the  air  does  not  furnish.  We  feed  our  cereals 
with  phosphate  of  lime,  for  instance ;  and  we  know 
that,  unless  we  keep  replenishing  the  soil,  it  is  soon 
exhausted  of  this  and  other  important  constituents. 
So  if  a  hen  does  not  get  lime  enough  in  her  food,  she 
lays  soft  or  thin  shelled  eggs.  And  just  as  certainly 
as  a  man  does  not  get  lime  enough  in  his  food,  his 
bones  will  be  liable  to  soften  and  bend  under  him. 

These  little  striped  fibres,  which  do  the  bidding  of 
your  will,  must  be  exercised,  or  they  will  undergo  a 
gradual  change,  diminishing  in  size  or  in  number,  or 
perhaps  becoming  converted  into  fat,  and  thus  substi 
tuting  a  burden  for  a  force. 

The  constant  exchange  of  elements  between  our 
bodies  and  the  matter  surrounding  us,  in  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  life  essentially  consists,  may  be  easily  pre 
vented  or  hindered  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  Death, 
or  disturbance  of  health,  in  proportion  to  the  interrup 
tion,  must  follow.  A  cord  about  the  neck  obstructs  the 
windpipe  and  is  fatal.  Air  too  long  breathed  has  been 
robbed  of  its  oxygen  and  become  overloaded  with  car 
bonic  acid ;  it  can  neither  furnish  the  blood  what  it 


THE  HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      203 

requires,  nor  relieve  it  of  what  it  should  get  rid  of,-  — 
for  a  sponge  already  full  will  not  take  up  water. 

Knowing  the  dozen  elements  of  which  the  human 
body  is  made  up,  we  know  exactly  what  elements  must 
be  supplied  in  the  food.  An  analysis  of  the  common 
articles  we  use  for  our  sustenance  at  once  shows  us 
how  our  tissues  are  renewed.  Air  and  water  furnish 
oxygen  and  hydrogen ;  bread  and  meat  supply  us  with 
nitrogen  and  carbon ;  lime  is  found  in  the  water  we 
drink  and  the  cereal  grains  ;  phosphorus  also  in  the 
latter,  in  milk  and  in  eggs ;  sulphur  in  the  two  last, 
and  in  water ;  common  salt  (chlorine  and  sodium)  in 
different  articles  of  food,  and  added  to  all  as  a  condi 
ment  ;  potash  in  vegetable  food  generally,  and  in  water ; 
iron  in  flesh  and  in  water. 

One  would  say  that  the  regulation  of  the  conditions 
of  the  body  should  be  as  simple  as  the  ordering  of  the 
conditions  which  enable  a  skilful  agriculturist  to  raise 
healthy  vegetables  and  fruits.  There  are  only  two 
difficulties,  —  we  cannot  choose  our  constitutions,  and 
we  cannot  always  command  many  of  the  circumstances 
which  have  most  influence  on  health. 

What  do  we  mean  by  constitution  ?  We  mean  the 
inherited  sum  of  living  force,  with  all  its  manifesta 
tions  in  form,  in  structure,  in  tendency.  In  the  ele 
ments  of  which  we  are  composed,  and  the  processes  by 
which  our  life  is  maintained,  we  are  all  alike.  But  in 
constitution  there  are  differences  so  great  between  in 
dividuals  that  they  hardly  seem  to  inherit  the  same 
nature.  Every  vital  act  is  harmoniously  and  easily 
performed  in  one  set  of  persons,  those  whose  tissues 
and  organs  are  duly  constituted  and  adjusted  to  each 
other.  Everything  goes  wrong  in  another  set  of  per 
sons,  in  whom  the  same  tissues  and  organs  are  ill  con- 


204       PAGES   FROM  AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

structed  and  imperfectly  fitted  or  proportioned.  We 
all  see  about  us  those  to  whom  life  is  a  constant  easy 
victory  over  the  elements  and  forces  of  the  outside 
world,  and  by  their  side  those  to  whom  the  mere  labor 
of  existence  is  enough  and  more  than  enough  to  task 
all  their  powers.  Invalidism  is  a  function  to  which 
certain  persons  are  born,  as  others  are  born  to  poetry 
or  art  as  their  calling. 

This  difference  of  constitution  makes  it  impossible 
to  lay  down  a  complete  set  of  rules  of  universal  ap 
plication.  If  we  could  determine  by  an  edict  what 
families  should  be  allowed  to  continue  their  lineage,  if 
we  could  with  propriety  cause  every  child  of  a  certain 
undervitalized  make  to  take  advantage  of  its  period  of 
innocence  and  retire  from  the  unequal  contest  with  the 
difficulties  of  life,  it  would  be  comparatively  easy  to 
lay  down  a  code  of  health  for  our  select  community. 
But  infants  are  allowed  to  grow  up  all  around  us 
whom  the  Spartans  would  have  condemned  without 
ceremony  as  unmerchantable  human  articles.  These 
unfortunates  find  it  very  hard  to  accept  the  fact  that 
their  normal  state  is  invalidism.  They  are  constantly 
consulting  medical  men  for  evils  no  more  to  be  reme 
died  than  their  stature  can  be  made  to  suit  them.  The 
worse  they  are  by  nature,  the  more  they  cry  to  be  set 
right.  It  is  as  if  the  cripples  should  all  insist  on  be 
ing  taught  all  the  accomplishments  which  the  dancing- 
master  professes  to  impart. 

Why  particular  families  should  run  down,  and  taper 
off,  and  die  out,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say,  but  we 
can  all  see  that  the  process  is  continually  going  on 
around  us.  When  Nature  has  made  up  her  mind  that 
she  has  had  enough  of  a  particular  stock,  and  that  its 
room  is  better  than  its  company,  the  work  of  patching 


THE  HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      205 

up  the  constitutions  of  its  offspring  and  keeping  them 
alive,  if  they  can  ever  be  called  so,  is  one  of  the  most 
desperate  tasks  assigned  to  the  healers  of  men.  How 
many  lives,  physiologically  speaking,  are  a  great  deal 
more  trouble  than  they  are  worth,  —  belonging  to  ani 
mated  machines  no  more  fitted  from  the  very  first  to 
keep  vital  time,  than  the  watches  sold  at  a  Broadway 
mock-auction  den  are  to  tell  the  time  of  the  day  ! 

Yet  some  of  these  lives,  so  worthless  in  the  whole 
sale  physiological  aspect,  are  precious  to  their  owners 
and  the  friends  of  their  owners,  —  nay,  they  may  go 
with  natures  worthy  of  far  better  fleshly  tenements. 
No  doubt  there  are  many  individuals,  and  some  fami 
lies,  that  would  do  best  to  let  their  infirmities  die  with 
them,  rather  than  add  them  to  the  already  sufficiently 
ample  stock  belonging  to  the  race.  Unfortunately, 
they  do  not  commonly  think  so,  and  nature  has  at  last 
to  interfere  with  the  gentle  violence  of  what  we  call 
disease,  but  which  is  often  a  mere  incapacity  for  liv 
ing- 
There  is  one  comfort  even  for  these.  Infirmities 
may  be  bred  out  of  a  race  by  fortunate  alliances  and 
improved  conditions,  so  that,  as  I  once  showed  by  an 
example  borrowed  from  this  neighborhood,  some  of 
the  great-great-grandchildren  of  a  person  who  gradu 
ated  at  Harvard  College  nearly  a  century  and  a  half 
ago,  a  man  of  delicate  organization  and  feeble  health, 
were  and  are  remarkable  for  robust  qualities  of  body 
and  mind. 

The  tendency  to  physical  deterioration  is  marked 
enough  here  in  the  northern  and  eastern  section  of  the 
country,  but  whether  more  so  than  in  other  temperate 
regions  is  by  no  means  proved.  One  of  the  lustiest 
looking  Englishmen  I  have  ever  met  told  me  that  al- 


200       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

most  every  one  of  his  relatives  had  died  of  consump 
tion,  and  that  he  himself  had  been  doomed  at  one  time 
by  his  physician.  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  said  that  half 
the  Londoners  of  his  time  died  of  that  disease,  — 
which  was  a  great  overstatement,  no  doubt.  But  I 
have  often  noticed,  in  our  own  returns  of  the  weekly 
mortality  of  Boston,  that  one  third,  and  sometimes  one 
half,  of  the  deaths  of  persons  over  twenty  years  old 
are  from  consumption.  Some  might  think  this  was 
owing  to  our  particular  climate  or  conditions,  but  Dr. 
Casper's  statistics  show  a  greater  percentage  of  phthi 
sis  for  New  York,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Hamburg  than 
for  Boston. 

It  may  well  be  a  question  whether  human  creatures 
raised  under  glass^  which  is  the  condition  of  being 
raised  at  all  for  the  civilized  inhabitants  of  all  but  the 
central  zone  of  the  planet,  represent  the  normal  state 
of  humanity.  A  man  ought  to  be  born  under  a  tree, 
or  at  most  in  a  tent,  to  get  his  full  allowance  of  ele 
mental  influences.  The  land  of  the  palm  governs  the 
land  of  the  pine  at  this  moment,  either  in  virtue  of 
the  fact  that  the  priests  and  prophets  of  Asia  were 
better  endowed  men,  or,  as  the  Christian  world  gen 
erally  believes,  were  selected  as  worthiest  of  immediate 
communications  from  the  Deity. 

It  is  not  a  question  with  most  persons,  however, 
whether  they  shall  permanently  change  their  climate. 
They  must  make  the  best  of  their  own.  Ours  is  a  very 
trying  one.  On  the  seaboard  we  have  the  sudden  tran 
sition  from  warm  southerly  to  chilling  east  winds,  the 
last  so  much  dreaded  by  invalids.  This  we  may  get 
rid  of  to  some  extent  by  going  farther  inland ;  but  the 
east  wind  has  a  bad  name  pretty  widely  as  compared 
with  the  "  wild  west,"  the  "  sweet  south,"  the  "  brae- 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      207 

ing  north."     Poets  have  little  to  say  about  it,  and  that 
little  not  flattering  :  — 

"  How  do  ye  this  blae  eastlin'  win', 
That 's  like  to  blaw  a  body  blin'  ?  " 

The  hot  summers  "  wilt "  us ;  the  keen  northwesters 
intoxicate  us  with  their  champagne-like  stimulus.  The 
dryness  of  the  atmosphere  drains  our  moisture  and 
makes  us  thin,  and  consequently  sensitive  to  outward 
influences.  The  last  circumstance  has  been  illustrated 
in  a  very  interesting  pamphlet  by  Mr.  Desor.  He 
tells  us  that  laundresses  from  the  Old  World  find 
their  linen  dries  quicker  here  than  at  home;  that 
cooks  find  their  bread  hardens  instead  of  moulding, 
as  they  used  to  see  it ;  and  that  persons  who  brought 
soft,  silken  hair  from  the  Old  World  notice  that  it  be 
comes  harsh  and  dry  after  a  residence  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  To  these  things  we  must  make  up  our 
minds.  In  compensation,  we  of  the  North,  at  least  of 
New  England,  are  almost  wholly  free  from  malaria. 
I  examined  this  subject  with  some  care  many  years 
ago,  and  could  only  find  a  spot  here  and  there  open  to 
suspicion,  —  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Champlain,  and  in 
former  years  at  some  points  on  one  or  two  of  the 
rivers  of  Western  Massachusetts.  In  the  earlier  peri 
ods  of  settlement,  it  seems  to  have  betrayed  its  pres 
ence  by  causing  intermittents  occasionally,  and  I  have 
heard  that  within  a  few  years  these  have  been  show 
ing  themselves  in  some  places  supposed  to  be  exempt. 
A  rare  instance  or  two  of  the  origination  of  fever  and 
ague  in  this  neighborhood  may  be  found  in  recent 
medical  records. a 

"  It  has  encroached  on  our  New  England  territory  a  good  deal 
of  late  years. 


208          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

n. 

ADJUSTABLE  CONDITIONS. 

To  cultivate  human  organizations  under  glass,  as  we 
are  submitted  to  the  necessity  of  doing,  implies  f  ui-- 
nishing  them  with  artificial  HEAT,  and  depriving  them 
of  natural  light.  Both  these  are  grave  considerations 
with  reference  to  their  effect  on  human  beings. 

So  long  as  people  will  sacrifice  luxury,  comfort, 
health,  and  even  life,  to  economy,  we  shall  have  the 
drying  anthracite  fire,  or  the  hole  in  the  floor  exhal 
ing  baked  air  and  mineral  effluvia,  the  tight  room 
with  double  windows,  the  poisoned  atmosphere,  and 
the  dull  headache  and  fevered  skin  and  sulphurous 
taste  in  our  mouths  which  accompany  in  various  de 
grees  these  money  -  saving  and  life-wasting  arrange 
ments. 

Open  fireplaces,  wood,  or  soft  coal,  aided,  if  need 
be,  by  moderate  furnace  heat  in  the  coldest  weather, 
are  the  first  requisites  for  health,  comfort,  and  cheer, 
fulness.  Even  heating  by  steam  or  hot  water  is  no 
substitute  for  the  blaze  of  the  open  fireplace  and  the 
brisk  circulation  of  air  kept  up  by  the  breathing  pas 
sage  of  a  room,  —  its  chimney. 

A  temperature  of  seventy  degrees  suits  many  per 
sons.  A  famous  traveller,  inured  to  the  heats  of  Af 
rica,  told  me  he  liked  to  have  the  thermometer  at 
sixty-eight  degrees.  An  equally  celebrated  statesman 
whom  I  visited  last  winter  wanted  it  at  eighty  degrees. 
Some  are  comfortable  when  it  is  not  much  over  sixty. 

Warmth,  however,  and  an  atmosphere  containing  a 
due  amount  of  moisture,  are  not  enough  to  secure 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      209 

health  without  insuring  the  daily  presence  of  a  suffi 
cient  amount  of  LIGHT.  The  dark  side  of  a  street  is  far 
more  subject  to  disease  than  the  light  side.  Sir  James 
Wylie  found  three  times  as  many  cases  of  disease  on 
the  shaded  side  of  the  barracks  at  St.  Petersburg  as 
on  the  other  side.  Dupuytren  is  said  to  have  wrought 
a  cure  in  the  case  of  a  lady  in  a  seemingly  desperate 
condition,  by  simply  removing  her  from  her  dark 
quarters  to  a  brighter  residence,  and  keeping  her  as 
much  as  possible  in  the  daylight.  There  is  no  better 
testimony  on  any  such  point  than  that  of  Miss  Flor 
ence  Nightingale.  What  she  says  of  the  value  of  light 
to  those  who  are  ill  indicates  no  less  its  necessity  for 
those  who  are  well :  — 

"  Second  only  to  fresh  air,  however,  I  should  be  in 
clined  to  rank  light  in  importance  for  the  sick.  Di 
rect  sunlight,  not  only  daylight,  is  necessary  for  speedy 
recovery.  .  .  .  Instances  could  be  given  almost  endless, 
where  in  dark  wards,  or  in  wards  with  a  northern  as 
pect,  even  when  thoroughly  warmed,  or  in  wards  with 
borrowed  light,  even  when  thoroughly  ventilated,  the 
sick  could  not  by  any  means  be  made  speedily  to  re 
cover." 

Very  few  persons  seem  to  have  a  due  sense  of  the 
luxury  and  benefit  of  aprication,  or  immersion  in  the 
sunshine  bath,  which  every  fair  day  will  furnish  gra 
tuitously  to  all  applicants.  One  ancient  man,  very 
poor,  and  very  simple  in  most  matters,  whose  clay  pipe 
I  sometimes  replenish  for  him,  is  almost  the  only  per 
son  I  happen  to  know  who  seems  really  to  enjoy  the 
sunshine  as  much  as  if  he  were  a  vegetable.  That  these 
humbler  creatures  enjoy  it,  if  they  enjoy  anything,  we 
may  guess  by  their  actions.  The  passion  of  the  sun 
flower  for  "  her  god  "  is  famous  in  song.  But  there 


210        PAGES   FROM  AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

are  examples  of  still  more  ardent  devotion  than  heis. 
Mr.  Jesse  tells  how  a  potato,  left  in  a  dark  cellar  with 
only  one  opening,  sent  its  shoot  twenty  feet  to  get  at 
the  light  through  that  little  crevice.  After  this  story, 
the  "  eye  "  of  a  potato  seems  a  well-deserved  name  for 
the  bud  that  can  see  a  crack  so  far  off.  The  feathered 
bipeds  value  sunshine  more  than  many  of  the  un- 
plumed  ones  appear  to.  There  is  a  little  streak  of 
morning  sun  which  in  early  spring  comes  in  between 
two  buildings  near  by  me  and  traverses  the  open 
space  beyond,  as  the  sun  moves  up  the  heavens.  The 
sensible  barn-yard  fowls  of  the  Infirmary  hen-coops 
follow  it  as  it  slowly  travels  along,  as  faithfully  as  if 
their  brains  were  furnished  with  heliostats. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  there  is  something  more 
than  warmth  in  sunlight.  The  skin  does  not  tan  and 
freckle  in  warm,  dark  rooms.  Photography  reminds 
us  that  there  is  a  chemistry  in  sunshine,  without  which 
that  beautiful  art  would  be  unknown.  You  have  only 
to  look  at  the  windows  in  some  of  the  lower  houses 
in  Beacon  Street,  just  above  Charles,  to  see  what  a 
singular  change  of  color  has  taken  place  in  many  of 
the  paces  of  glass  which  were  quite  colorless  when  set. 
Mr.  Gaffield's  interesting  experiments  have  illustrated 
this  curious  fact,  and  added  another  chapter  to  the  al 
chemy  of  the  sunbeam. 

Color  is  not  commonly  consulted,  except  for  the 
sake  of  the  eyes ;  but  a  notion  has  long  prevailed  in 
some  countries  that  it  has  an  important  influence  in 
disease.  When  John  of  Gaddesden  was  called  to  the 
son  of  Edward  the  Second,  who  was  attacked  with  the 
small-pox,  he  had  the  prince  wrapped  in  scarlet  cloths, 
and  surrounded  with  draperies  of  the  same  color.  The 
Japanese,  according  to  Kamipfer,  have  a  similar  fancy. 


THE  HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      211 

It  survived  in  England  at  least  as  late  as  1744.  A 
physician  practising  at  that  date  tells  how  he  was 
called  to  the  child  of  a  certain  military  officer,  and,  on 
his  announcing  that  it  was  breaking  out  with  small 
pox,  three  women  took  off  their  scarlet  capes,  and 
wrapped  the  child  in  them.  It  was  kept  so  enveloped 
during  the  whole  time  of  its  sickness. 

I  had  done  with  this  matter  of  color,  when,  by  one 
of  those  curious  coincidences  which  seem  more  than 
accidental,  between  the  end  of  the  last  paragraph  and 
the  beginning  of  this,  a  little  book  was  laid  on  my 
table  bearing  upon  this  very  subject.  I  cannot  neg 
lect  such  a  hint  from  the  Disposing  Powers.  "  Hap 
pily,"  says  Mr.  Masury,  who  sends  me  this  "  Popular 
Treatise  on  the  Art  of  House  Painting,"  "  the  day 
of  dead-whites  for  the  interior  of  our  dwellings  has 
passed  by,  — let  us  hope  not  to  return.  It  was  a  kind 
of  Puritanism  in  painting,  for  which  there  was  no 
warrant  in  nature,  which,  in  such  matters,  should  be 
our  teacher  and  guide."  And  this  leads  me  back  to 
Miss  Nightingale's  invaluable  "  Notes,"  full  of  hints, 
such  as  only  a  sensitive  woman  could  have  had  the 
subtlety  to  suggest.  "  Form,  color,  will  free  your  pa 
tient  from  his  painful  ideas  better  than  any  argu 
ment.  .  .  .  No  one  who  has  watched  the  sick  can 
doubt  the  fact,  that  some  feel  stimulus  from  looking 
at  scarlet  flowers,  exhaustion  from  looking  at  deep 
blue,"  etc. 

The  light  of  the  moon  has,  from  time  immemorial, 
been  supposed  to  exercise  some  evil  influence  on  living 
creatures,  as  the  words  moon -calf,  moonstruck,  lu 
natic,  remind  us.  That  the  moon  is  the  chief  cause  of 
the  tides  we  know.  That  it  influences  the  weather  is 
believed  on  the  strength  of  a  certain  amount  of  evi- 


212         PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

dence.  Professor  Marcet  of  Geneva  examined  a  series 
of  meteorological  tables  extending  from  1800  to  1860, 
and  came  to  the  result,  from  their  showing,  that  the 
chance  of  a  change  of  weather  on  the  day  of  the  full 
moon  is  0.121,  at  new  moon  0.125,  the  day  after  full 
moon  0.143,  and  the  day  after  new  moon  0.148.  Now, 
if  the  moon  influences  the  weather,  it  must,  indirectly 
at  least,  influence  human  health. 

It  has  been  supposed  to  cause  and  aggravate  insan 
ity  more  especially,  not  only  in  common  belief,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  writings  of  poets  like  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  and  lawyers  like  Blackstone,  but  by  so  grave 
an  authority  as  the  illustrious  Pinel,  the  reformer  of 
the  doctrine  and  treatment  of  mental  diseases.  Yet 
the  notion  is  generally  rejected,  I  believe,  at  this  day. 
Dr.  Harlan  made  nothing  of  it  from  the  examination 
of  his  register ;  and  our  own  Dr.  Woodward  states,  as 
the  result  of  the  analysis  of  his  tables,  that "  no  theory 
seems  to  be  supported  by  them  which  has  existed 
among  the  ignorant  or  wise  men  who  have  been  be 
lievers  in  the  influence  of  the  moon  upon  the  insane." 
There  are  stories  of  persons  having  been  struck  with 
temporary  blindness  after  sleeping  in  the  moonlight. 

The  tailor's  art  has  blanched  the  surface  of  our 
bodies  to  the  whiteness  of  celery.  Like  that,  we  are 
buried  alive,  all  but  our  heads.  We  can  hardly  doubt 
that  the  condition  of  the  primitive  man  was  to  bask  in 
unimpeded  sunshine,  and  that  in  depriving  himself  of 
it  to  so  great  an  extent  he  must  -pay  the  penalty  in  the 
form  of  some  physical  deterioration.  Men  and  women 
must  have  sunshine  to  ripen  them  as  much  as  apples 
and  peaches.  The  exposure  that  is  liable  to  produce 
sunstroke,  of  which  the  present  summer  has  furnished 
an  unprecedented  number  of  instances,  and  the  over- 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      213 

fatigue  of  the  eyes  being  guarded  against,  the  sunbath 
may  be  considered  as  a  great  preservative  and  curative 
agent  for  most  persons.  Yet  there  are  those  with 
whom  it  does  not  seem  to  agree,  and  who  avoid  ex 
posure,  at  least  to  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  in  warm 
weather,  from  their  experience  of  the  effects  that  fol 
low  it.  Some  individuals  seem  to  be  born  a  certain 
number  of  degrees  north  or  south  of  the  region  fitted 
for  their  constitutions. 

The  AIR  we  breathe  is  the  next  point  to  be  touched 
upon.  If  we  inspire  and  expire  forty  hogsheads  of  air 
a  day,  rob  it  of  some  pounds  of  oxygen,  and  load  it 
with  other  pounds  of  carbonic  acid  gas,  we  must  need 
a  very  large  supply  for  our  daily  use.  The  ventilation 
of  buildings,  public  and  private,  is  accomplished  easily 
and  safely  enough,  if  people  will  take  the  pains  and 
spend  the  money.  Yet  it  is  sadly  neglected  by  those 
who  spare  no  trouble  and  expense  for  luxuries  much 
less  important.  I  have  been  at  elegant  dinner-parties, 
where,  what  with  the  number  of  guests  crowded  to 
gether  in  a  small  apartment,  the  blaze  of  numerous 
lights,  and  the  long  sitting,  to  say  nothing  of  the  va 
riety  of  wines  that  insisted  on  being  tasted,  the  great 
est  care  was  no  security  against  such  a  headache  the 
next  morning  as  only  a  debauch  ought  to  account  for. 
There  were  a  dozen  courses  for  the  palate,  and  only 
one  for  the  breathing  organs.  Let  no  host  expect  his 
guests  to  be  anything  but  sleepy  and  stupid,  if  they 
are  imprisoned  in  an  atmosphere  which  reduces  them 
all  to  a  state  of  semi-asphyxia. 

It  is  our  own  fault,  in  most  cases,  if  we  do  not  get 
ventilation  enough  at  home,  without  any  dangerous  ex 
posure  to  draughts.  But  once  cross  your  own  thresh- 


214       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

old  and  go  abroad,  you  are  no  longer  safe.  A  friend 
grapples  you,  warm  with  exercise,  and  keeps  you  talk 
ing,  with  the  wind  blowing  through  you,  charged  with 
catarrhs,  rheumatisms,  lung -fevers,  and  other  com 
plaints,  any  of  which  your  particular  constitution  may 
happen  to  fancy.  Never  stop  on  a  doorstep  to  discuss 
the  origin  of  evil,  or  linger  at  a  street  corner  to  settle 
the  authorship  of  Junius  and  Eikon  Basilike,  unless 
you  are  impregnable  to  the  blast  as  an  iron-clad  to 
bullets.  There  are  some,  no  doubt,  who  can  run  half 
a  dozen  times  round  the  Common,  and  sit  down  on 
Park  Street  Meeting-house  steps  and  cool  off,  without 
being  the  worse  for  it.  But  sensible  persons  are 
guided  by  their  own  experience.  It  is  not  their  affair 
how  much  exposure  other  people  can  bear.  Least  of 
all  must  the  delicate  male  sex  be  guided  by  the  con 
duct  of  their  rugged  and  insensible  female  fellow-crea 
tures.  Either  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  bare 
shoulders  as  to  the  shorn  lamb,  or  these  dear  sisters 
of  ours  are  the  toughest  of  organized  creatures. 

The  railroad  car  is  the  place  where  your  danger  is 
greatest  A  delicate  little  woman,  sitting  on  the  seat 
before  you,  will  throw  a  window  wide  open,  and  let 
the  winter  wind  in  upon  you  in  a  steady  current  for 
hours,  without  the  least  idea  that  she  is  committing 
homicide.  "  There  is  no  need  of  assassination,"  says 
the  late  Professor  Harris,  "  to  temper  the  asperities  of 
politics.  When  your  victim  starts  for  Washington, 
let  there  always  be  a  woman  on  the  seat  before  him. 
He  will  die  a  natural  death  before  long,  —  perfectly 
natural,  under  the  circumstances." 

There  must  be  some  reason  in  the  nature  of  things 
for  the  way  in  which  the  seemingly  tender  frame  of 
woman  bears  such  exposure  to  the  elements.  We 


THE  HUMAN  BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      215 

must  understand  her  before  we  condemn  her  for  deal 
ing  death  and  destruction  among  the  unfortunate 
males  who  are  her  fellow-travellers.  Woman  requires 
more  air,  or  at  least  purer  air,  than  man.  She  is  the 
first  to  faint  in  a  crowd ;  she  takes  to  her  fan  in  dis 
tress  before  a  man  begins  to  be  uncomfortable.  In 
her  need  of  fresh  air  she  becomes  accustomed  to 
draughts,  just  as  in  obeying  the  law  of  her  being,  to 
please,  she  learns  to  brave  the  seasons  in  an  undress 
which  her  brother  or  her  lover  would  consider  his 
death-warrant.  I  have  seen  a  young  girl  sniffing  the 
icy  breeze  of  January  through  a  wide-open  car  window 
as  if  it  were  a  zephyr  of  summer,  while  the  seats  about 
her  were  deserted  by  one  frozen  wretch  after  another, 
no  one  of  them  willing  to  interfere  with  her  atmos 
pheric  cold-bath,  though  it  was  at  the  risk  of  their 
lives  they  had  been  forced  to  share  it.  The  struggle 
between  those  who  complain  of  being  stifled  and  those 
who  fear  being  chilled  to  death  is  one  that  can  never 
cease ;  it  is,  like  conservatism  and  reform,  a  matter  of 
organic  instinct.  Women  are  born  atmospheric  re 
formers. 

The  principles  on  which  the  amount  and  the  nature 
of  our  FOOD  are  based  flow  obviously  from  the  facts 
already  laid  down.  We  must  take  enough  to  supply 
the  daily  waste.  We  must  supply  in  due  proportion 
the  dozen  elements  or  more  of  which  our  body  is 
formed.  Air  and  water  are  of  course  the  principal 
substances  on  which  we  feed.  From  these  we  get  our 
supplies  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen.  Why  not  of  nitro 
gen,  as  four  fifths  of  the  air  consist  of  that  gas  ? 
Thirty  hogsheads  of  nitrogen  pass  in  and  out  of  our 
lungs  daily,  and  yet  it  can  hardly  be  shown  that  we 


216        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

take  toll  of  it  to  the  amount  of  a  cubic  inch  !  We  are 
all  our  lives  soaking  in  a  great  aerial  ocean,  made  up 
chiefly  of  nitrogen  ;  and  we  shall  die  of  nitrogen-fam 
ine,  if  we  do  not  have  a  portion  of  it  supplied  to  us  in 
our  solid  or  our  liquid  food. 

"  Water,  water  everywhere, 
And  not  a  drop  to  drink  !  " 

We  get  our  nitrogen  from  the  cereals  that  furnish  our 
bread,  from  peas  and  beans,  from  milk,  cheese,  and 
from  animal  food,  except  its  fatty  portions.  We  can 
not  take  carbon,  sulphur,  phosphorus,  lime,  chlorine, 
iron,  potass,  soda,  in  their  simple  forms  ;  but  they  are 
contained  in  the  plants  and  in  the  flesh  of  animals 
which  furnish  our  common  diet,  or  in  the  water  we 
drink,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  salt,  supplied  as  condi 
ments.  If  the  food  does  not  supply  iron  enough,  we 
have  to  take  that  separately,  as  we  do  salt ;  in  fact,  it 
might  very  properly  take  its  place  in  the  casters,  were 
it  a  little  less  unpalatable. 

The  body  is  a  soil  capable  of  being  improved  by 
adding  the  elements  in  which  it  is  deficient,  as  much 
as  farming  or  garden  land.  Fresh  vegetables  are  the 
fertilizers  of  human  clay  or  dust  that  has  grown  scor 
butic  on  a  long  course  of  salted  food.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  of  our  domestic  animals  must  be  "  salted  " 
as  much  as  they  must  be  fed  or  watered,  or  they  will 
not  thrive.  The  agriculture  of  the  human  body  has 
hitherto  largely  consisted  in  top-dressing,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  number  of  capillary  fertilizers  we  see  ad 
vertised  in  the  papers.  But  out  of  a  proper  study  of 
the  material  wants  of  the  system,  and  of  the  best  nu 
tritive  substances  for  supplying  these  wants,  we  may 
expect  a  great  improvement  in  the  physical  conditions 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      217 

of  the  race.  The  cook  makes  our  bodies ;  the  apothe 
cary  only  cobbles  them. 

Shall  we  make  use  of  animal  or  vegetable  food,  or 
both  ?  The  controversy  has  lost  something  of  its  im 
portance  since  chemistry  has  shown  the  essential  iden 
tity  of  the  most  characteristic  elements  of  the  seeds  of 
which  we  make  our  bread  and  the  flesh  of  animals. 
Nature  declares  unequivocally  for  animal  food  in  the 
case  of  mammalian,  including  human,  infants  ;  fat  and 
cheese,  with  eau  sucrSe  and  saline  condiments,  being 
our  earliest  diet,  in  the  form  of  milk.  Very  young 
birds  are  fed  entirely  on  eggs,  unboiled.  As  they 
grow  up,  many  animals  become  vegetable  feeders,  but 
not  always  so  exclusively  as  we  suppose.  I  once  saw 
a  squirrel  eating  a  live  snake  like  a  radish,  and  I  have 
records  of  several  similar  facts.  Cows  will  eat  fish 
and  other  animal  food  occasionally,  perhaps  on  the 
principle  that  all  flesh  is  grass. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  repugnance  with  which 
fastidious  persons  regard  the  act  of  devouring  the 
flesh  of  animals.  The  fanatics  on  the  subject  are 
sometimes  terribly  abusive,  as  I  have  had  occasion  to 
know.  Yet  I  have  had  refreshing  seasons  of  converse 
with  vegetable  feeders,  who  are  commonly  of  a  specu 
lative  turn  of  mind,  and  amuse  unbelievers  with  their 
curious  fancies.  Theories  commonly  go  in  sets  like 
chamber  furniture,  and  you  will  find  a  mind  furnished 
throughout,  physiologically,  philosophically,  morally, 
theologically,  in  the  same  shade  of  color,  and  with  the 
same  general  pattern  prevailing  through  all  its  articles 
of  belief. 

Here  and  there  a  healthy  person  is  found  thriving 
on  vegetable  diet,  and  patients  who  have  had  apoplec 
tic  attacks,  or  slight  epileptic  seizures,  and  some  who 


218        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

have  had  symptoms  threatening  consumption,  seem  to 
have  arrested  or  delayed  the  course  of  disease  by  con 
fining  themselves  to  it  habitually. 

There  is  no  absolute  answer  to  the  inquirer  who 
would  know,  once  for  all,  whether  he  is  herbivorous  or 
omnivorous.  Climate  settles  it  in  a  great  measure. 
The  blubber  of  Iceland  and  the  bread-fruit  of  the  Pa 
cific  islands  are  the  enforced  food  of  their  inhabitants. 
As  the  nutritive  elements  of  animal  and  vegetable 
food  are,  as  has  been  said,  the  same,  it  is  mainly  a 
question  of  appetite  and  digestion.  Some  have  an  in 
vincible  repugnance  to  animal  food,  for  which  there  is 
probably  some  good  reason  in  the  economy.  Others 
relish  it  when  they  hardly  care  for  anything  else.  In 
Dr.  Beaumont's  famous  experiments  on  Alexis  St. 
Martin,  the  man  with  an  accidental  side-door  to  his 
stomach,  we  have  some  very  interesting  results  as  to 
the  digestibility  of  different  substances.  Tripe  and 
pigs'  feet  were  easiest  of  digestion ;  pork,  most  diffi 
cult.  We  can  say  ex  pede  Herculem,  but  not  ex  pede 
porcum.  Venison  came  next  to  the  first  two  in  the 
ease  with  which  it  was  reduced  in  the  stomach. 

There  is  a  widely  prevalent  and  very  ancient  preju 
dice  against  swine's  flesh,  traceable  as  far  back  as  the 
early  Egyptians,  embodied  in  the  codes  of  Judaism 
and  Mahometanism,  and  shared  in  by  many  on  various 
grounds,  the  latest  of  which  is  the  fear  of  the  trichina. 
Considering  the  vast  amount  of  pork  consumed  in  this 
country,  and  the  few  instances  in  which  these  little 
living  coils  are  found  specking  human  muscles,  the 
danger  cannot  be  great.  Proper  cooking  reduces  it  to 
nothing  at  all.  That  a  pork-fed  race  will  in  the  long 
run  show  a  constitutional  and  characteristic  difference 
from  one  that  lives  on  beef  and  mutton,  on  fish  chiefly, 


THE  HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.       219 

or  vegetable  food,  we  may  safely  believe.  We  are 
trying  the  experiment  on  a  great  scale.  With  what 
feelings  would  Jerusalem  have  looked  on  Cincinnati 
in  prophetic  vision !  Few  Christians  reject  the  forbid 
den  article  in  at  least  one  form.  A  law  prohibiting 
the  use  of  ham  in  sandwiches  would  bring  dismay  to 
the  bearers  of  luncheon  -  baskets  and  cast  a  darker 
shadow  over  those  sufficiently  depressing  festivals 
known  as  picnics. 

Veal  disagrees  with  a  good  many  people ;  with 
some,  probably,  who  do  not  suspect  it  as  the  cause  of 
the  disturbance  of  the  digestive  function  while  they  are 
suffering  from  it.  Persons  who  are  liable  to  be  injured 
by  it  do  well  to  avoid  "  chicken  salad  "  and  croquettes, 
unless  their  composition  is  sworn  to  before  a  magis 
trate.  Soups  made  from  veal,  and  sweetbreads,  seem 
less  liable  to  prove  unwholesome. 

I  have  met  with  individuals  who  could  not  eat  mut 
ton,  and  I  have  seen  two  cases  in  which  corned  beef 
was  the  apparent  cause  of  attacks  of  vertigo. 

Cases  of  poisoning  from  eating  partridges  are  not 
very  uncommon.  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow  has  brought  to 
gether  accounts  of  ten  such  cases  in  his  collection  of 
essays  entitled  "  Nature  in  Disease,"  one  of  which  I 
myself  attended  and  furnished  him.  The  symptoms 
are  somewhat  like  those  occasioned  by  prussic  acid, 
and  are  not  known  to  have  terminated  fatally  in  any 
instance,  though  sufficiently  alarming.  The  cases 
commonly  occur  in  winter,  when  snow  is  on  the 
ground.  An  ancient  lady  told  me  that  the  first  Dr. 
Jeffries  used  to  speak  of  February  as  the  month  of 
danger  from  this  cause.  Only  three  of  the  cases  given 
by  Dr.  Bigelow  are  dated,  and  all  these  happened  in 
February.  The  cause  of  the  poisonous  quality  of  the 


220        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

flesh  of  certain  partridges  has  been  supposed  to  be  in 
something  they  have  eaten,  especially  the  buds  and 
leaves  of  the  mountain  laurel,  on  which  the  bird  has 
fed  while  the  ground  was  covered  with  snow.  The 
examination  of  the  crops  of  many  partridges  has  not 
confirmed  this  notion,  or  shown  anything  to  account 
for  the  poisonous  effects  observed. 

Lobsters,  clams,  mussels,  mackerel,  have  all  occa 
sionally  proved  poisonous. 

Cheese,  honey,  strawberries,  disagree  with  many 
persons.  I  saw  a  sudden  outbreak  of  nettle -rash 
brought  on  by  strawberries  last  year,  annoying,  but 
soon  over,  and  hardly  enough  to  frighten  the  subject 
of  it  from  repeating  the  experiment. 

It  is  a  delicate  matter  to  meddle  with  the  subject  of 
DRINKS,  after  the  experience  of  the  last  year  or  two,  in 
which  we  have  seen  purely  scientific  questions  made 
the  subject  of  party  controversy.  With  reference  to 
the  great  point  in  dispute,  there  has  been  some  confu 
sion  between  two  different  questions ;  namely,  that  of 
the  effects  of  alcohol  and  that  of  the  effects  of  differ 
ent  alcoholic  drinks. 

Alcohol  itself  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  used  as  a 
drink  at  all,  though  the  jars  containing  preparations, 
anatomical  or  other,  in  museums,  are  said  to  have 
sometimes  lost  their  contents  too  rapidly  for  evapora 
tion  to  account  for. 

All  alcoholic  drinks  have  certain  effects  in  com 
mon  ;  that  is,  all  affect  the  brain  more  or  less.  A 
single  glass  of  lager -beer  changes  the  current  of 
thought  and  the  tone  of  feeling  in  a  person  not  in  the 
habit  of  using  stimulants.  But  alcoholic  drinks  differ 
entirely  from  each  other  in  some  of  their  effects. 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      221 

Champagne,  beer,  gin,  brandy  are  all  well  known  to 
produce  specific  influences  on  particular  functions,  in 
addition  to  their  action  on  the  brain,  which  again  is 
by  no  means  identical  in  all  these  liquors. 

But  the  difference  in  their  action  extends  further 
than  at  first  sight  appears.  An  argument  has  been 
founded  on  the  alleged  fact  that  alcohol  diminishes 
the  exhalation  of  carbonic  acid  from  the  system.  It 
appears,  however,  from  the  very  careful  and  long-con 
tinued  experiments  of  Dr.  Edward  Smith,  that  while 
some  alcoholic  drinks  diminish  this  exhalation,  brandy 
and  gin,  for  instance,  others  increase  it,  as  rum,  ale, 
and  porter.  Lallemand  and  his  collaborators  found 
that  alcohol  passed  unchanged  out  of  the  system,  as 
we  know  it  does  by  perceiving  its  smell  too  often  in 
our  neighbor's  breath.  But  only  a  limited  portion  of 
the  alcohol  taken,  one  fourth  it  is  said,  is  thus  ac 
counted  for  ;  and  the  rest  may,  for  aught  that  yet  ap 
pears,  serve  as  food  or  fuel  in  the  system.  The  chem 
ical  argument,  on  which  so  much  stress  has  been  laid, 
cannot  be  safely  appealed  to.  We  must  turn  to  ex 
perience. 

There  is  no  need  of  dwelling  on  the  ruinous  effects 
of  over-indulgence  in  strong  drink.  Neither  is  there 
any  use  in  telling  lies,  still  less  in  legislating  them. 
The  habitual  use  of  alcoholic  fluids  in  the  form  of 
wine  does  not  prevent  men  and  women  from  living 
long,  active,  useful,  healthy,  and  virtuous  lives.  Four 
of  those  whom  I  most  honored  in  the  last  generation 
drank  wine  daily  all  the  years  I  knew  them.  Their 
age  reached  an  average  of  between  eighty-seven  and 
eighty-eight  years,  and  yet  not  one  of  them  was  of  ro 
bust  habit,  or  promised  to  attain  any  remarkable  lon 
gevity. 


222        PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

This  argument  from  experience  is  good  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  may  easily  be  perverted  by  those  who  are 
neglecting  all  the  rules  of  moderation  which  these  four 
persons  strictly  observed.  A  common  mistake  is  to 
confound  the  tolerance  of  a  disturbing  agent,  which 
habit  easily  establishes,  with  the  indifference  of  the 
constitution  to  it.  One  may  take  a  drachm  or  two  of 
laudanum  in  a  day,  after  practice  enough,  without 
minding  it  much,  but  not  without  its  contributing  its 
fraction  to  the  bodily  and  mental  ruin  which  the  drug 
brings  about  in  due  time.  So  one  may  form  the  habit 
of  taking  considerable  quantities  of  alcoholic  drink 
every  day  with  apparent  impunity,  yet  every  observing 
eye  will  detect  in  the  complexion,  the  variable  states 
of  the  mind  and  temper,  and  by  and  by  in  the  slight 
unsteadiness  which  marks  the  slow  change  going  on  in 
the  nervous  centres,  that  the  system  has  all  along 
been  suffering,  though  its  complaints  may  have  been 
too  slight  to  attract  much  attention. 

We  cannot  disguise  the  fact,  however,  that  men 
"  drink  "  because  they  like  it,  much  more  than  for  any 
good  they  suppose  it  does  them,  beyond  such  pleasure 
as  it  may  afford  ;  and  this  is  precisely  the  point  that 
all  arguments  fail  to  reach.  Pleasure  is  the  bird  in 
the  hand  which  foolish  persons  will  always  choose  be 
fore  the  two  birds  in  the  bush  which  are  to  be  the  re 
wards  of  virtue.  Intoxication  offers  to  the  weak  or 
ill-managed  brain  a  strange  pleasing  confusion,  a  kind 
of  Brahma's  heaven,  "  where  naught  is  everything  and 
everything  is  naught,"  and  where  all  perplexities  at 
last  resolve  themselves  into  the  generous  formula,  "  it 's 
of  no  consequence." 

If  Physiology  does  not  condemn  all  alcoholic  drinks 
as  poisons  ;  and  the  argument  that  it  does  has  clearly 


THE   HUMAN    BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      223 

been  overstated ;  if  we  cannot  prevent  their  use  by 
reasoning  or  legislation ;  the  next  thing  is  to  find  out 
which  among  them  are  likely  to  do  least  harm.  If  the 
battle  is  to  be  between  the  native  and  foreign  light 
wines  on  the  one  hand,  and  any  distilled  spirit  on  the 
other,  we  can  hardly  hesitate.  We  have  of  late  years 
Jairly  nationalized  the  Scotchman's  usquebaugh  under 
the  shorter  name  of  whiskey.  It  exactly  suits  the 
American  tendency  to  simplify  all  contrivances  and 
reach  the  proposed  end  by  the  shortest  route.  It  fur 
nishes  an  economical,  compendious,  portable,  manage 
able,  accommodating,  and  not  unpalatable  method  of 
arriving  at  the  Brahma's  heaven  above  mentioned. 
And  there  is  good  reason  to  fear  that  it  is  breeding  a 
generation  of  drunkards.  In  view  of  its  dangers,  many 
of  those  who  believe  in  abstinence  from  all  strong- 
drinks  may  agree  with  Professor  Agassiz  and  Dr.  Ham 
mond,  that  it  is  expedient  to  encourage  the  importation 
and  production  of  those  wines  which  have  proved  com 
paratively  safe  and  wholesome  as  habitual  beverages 
to  so  many  generations  of  men. 

Assuming  that  alcoholic  drinks  will  continue  to  be 
used,  it  is  well  to  know  which  are  best,  or,  if  the  tee 
totaller's  scale  is  to  be  adoptod,  which  is  worst.  Cham 
pagne  is  the  lightest  of  wines  to  many  persons. 
Sherry  is  very  often  better  borne  than  Madeira,  which 
is  too  acid.  Rum  proves  quieting  in  some  cases, 
where  whiskey  irritates.  Dr.  Edward  Smith  has  found 
rum  and  milk  one  of  the  most  valuable  forms  of 
nourishment  in  exhausting  diseases,  and  less  disturb 
ing  to  the  brain  than  other  alcoholic  mixtures.  Willis 
found  a  glass  of  ale  act  kindly  as  a  "  thought-stopper  " ; 
but  all  such  direct  attempts  on  the  thinking  centres 
are  dangerous  and  of  exceptional  application.  Some 


224       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

cases  of  dyspepsia  have  been  cured  or  benefited  by  the 
use  of  cider,  —  a  fact  hardly  surprising  when  we  re 
member  the  chemical  nature  of  the  process  of  digestion. 
Brandy  and  gin  may  properly  be  called  alcoholic 
drugs,  and  are  prescribed  for  certain  special  conditions 
of  the  system.  The  same  remark  might  be  applied  to 
whiskey  when  prescribed  for  consumptive  patients  ;  it 
forms  part  of  a  plan  of  treatment,  to  be  judged  by  its 
effects  as  observed  by  an  expert. 

The  experience  of  those  who  train  for  athletic  sports 
has  abundantly  shown  that  alcoholic  drinks  and  nar 
cotics  form  no  part  of  a  regimen  meant  to  insure  the 
best  physical  condition.  The  inference  is  plain  enough 
that  their  habitual  use  can  only  be  justified  by  ex 
ceptional  circumstances,  such  as  age,  invalidism,  or 
temporary  exhaustion.  The  "  coming  man  "  will  con 
sult  his  physician,  perhaps,  before  he  ventures  to  em 
ploy  any  of  these  disturbing  agents.  The  present  man 
is  at  no  loss  for  a  motive. 

"  If  on  my  theme  I  rightly  think, 
There  are  five  reasons  why  men  drink: 
Good  wine,  a  friend,  because  I  *ra  dry, 
Or  least  I  should  be  by  and  by, 
Or  any  other  reason  why." 

Coffee,  in  excess,  produces  heat,  headache,  tremors, 
wakefulness,  and  a  kind  of  half-insane  disconnection 
in  the  association  of  ideas.  Tea,  in  excess,  is  liable  to 
cause  wakefulness  and  palpitations.  The  heart  tumbles 
about  in  a  very  alarming  way,  sometimes,  under  its  in 
fluence.  Shall  we  give  them  up,  because  their  over 
use  disturbs  the  system  ?  Common  sense  answers,  that 
other  substances  besides  oxygen  may  require  dilution 
to  change  them  from  destructive  or  injurious  agents 
into  too<l,  or  comforts,  or  luxuries.  Liebig  justifies 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      225 

the  use  of  both  on  chemical  principles.  Better  than 
this,  common  experience  proves  them  to  be  adapted  to 
most  constitutions.  Dr.  Hammond  says  that  the  use 
of  both  in  armies  cannot  be  too  highly  commended. 
Dr.  Kane's  exploring  parties  found  that  coffee  served 
them  best  in  the  morning,  and  tea  after  the  day's  work, 
—  a  conclusion  which  many  of  us  have  arrived  at  by 
our  own  observation. 

The  tobacco  question  is  one  of  the  hardest  to  deal 
with.  When  the  Arctic  voyager  describes  his  little 
party  travelling  over  the  icebergs,  and  pictures  them 
as  they  rest  at  evening,  when  their  freezing  day's  jour 
ney  is  over,  who  can  grudge  them  the  pipe  of  tobacco 
they  take  with  such  calm  enjoyment  after  their  coffee  ? 
Who  would  have  robbed  Napoleon  of  his  snuff-box  at 
Waterloo  ?  Who  would  deny  the  sailor  on  his  mid 
night  watch,  or  the  sentry  on  his  round,  the  solace 
which  he  finds  in  his  acrid  nepenthe?  The  plain 
truth  about  tobacco  is,  that  it  is  not  a  strong  poison 
enough  to  produce  any  very  palpable  effects  on  the 
health,  when  used  in  small  quantities,  by  people  of 
average  constitutions.  Yet  I  remember  seeing  a  very 
famous  athlete  decline  a  cigar  offered  him,  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  be  enough  to  unfit  him  for  his 
performance,  which  required  perfectly  steady  nerves 
and  muscles.  A  danger  to  which  smokers  are  exposed 
is  injury  to  the  temper,  through  the  increased  irritabil 
ity  which  the  practice  is  apt  to  produce,  and  to  the 
will,  which  it  is  powerful  to  subjugate.  This  habit 
introduces  into  the  conduct  of  life  one  of  the  most 
imperious  forms  of  self-indulgence  known  to  human 
experience.  Our  state-prison  convicts  are  said  to  pine 
for  their  tobacco  more  than  any  other  luxury  of  free- 

16 


226       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

dom.  The  amount  of  duty  unperformed  or  postponed 
or  slighted,  in  obedience  to  the  craving  for  the  narcotic 
stimulant,  must  form  a  large  item  in  the  list  of  the 
many  things  left  undone  which  ought  to  have  been 
done.  Carry  the  use  of  the  strange  herb  a  little  f  urther, 
and  the  partial  palsy  of  the  will  extends  to  other  func 
tions.  The  sense  of  vision  is  one  of  the  first  points 
where  the  further  encroachment  of  the  drug  shows  it 
self.  Many  cases  of  amaurosis,  or  loss  of  power  in 
the  nerve  of  the  eye,  are  traced  to  the  free  use  of  to 
bacco.  Some  hard  smokers  are  great  workers,  as  we 
all  know  ;  but  few  who  have  watched  the  effects  of 
nicotization  on  will  and  character  would  deny  that  it 
handicaps  a  man,  and  often  pretty  heavily,  in  the  race 
for  distinction.  It  encourages  revery,  —  the  contem 
plation  of  the  possible,  which  is  a  charming  but  un 
wholesome  substitute  for  the  performance  of  the  duty 
next  at  hand.  If  we  divide  our  friends  into  the  if 
things  were  so  and  the  as  things  are  so  sections,  the 
nicotizers  will  probably  be  found  most  numerous  among 
the  former.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  all  hab 
its  of  this  kind,  like  insanity,  are  more-  apt  to  fasten 
themselves  on  natures  originally  defective  and  ill-bal 
anced,  than  on  those  in  which  the  poise  of  the  faculties 
is  well  adjusted,  and  the  self-determining  power  too  vig 
orous  to  become  enslaved.  If  one  comes  to  the  con 
clusion  that  he  will  be  better  for  leaving  off  the  use  of 
tobacco,  he  must  expect  to  find  that  it  costs  him  a  hard 
struggle.  It  is  a  second  weaning,  almost  as  trying  as 
the  first,  but  a  few  days  put  an  end  to  the  conflict. 

The  subject  of  CLOTHING  is  understood  well  enough, 
and  the  rules  of  common  sense  are  well  enough  ob 
served  by  men.  But  woman  is  under  the  guidance 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      227 

of  a  higher  law  than  any  relating  to  her  individual 
safety. 

"  No  woman  that  is  a  woman,"  says  the  late  Pro 
fessor  Harris,  "  values  her  comfort,  her  health,  or  her 
life  in  comparison  with  her  personal  appearance.  She 
is  impelled  by  a  profound  logic,  say  rather  a  divine  in 
stinct.  On  the  slender  thread  of  her  personal  attrac 
tions  hangs  the  very  existence  of  a  human  future.  The 
crinkle  of  a  ringlet,  the  tie  of  a  ribbon,  has  swayed  the 
wavering  choice  of  a  half-enamored  swain,  and  given 
to  the  world  a  race  which  would  never  have  come  to 
the  light  of  day  but  for  a  pinch  of  the  curling-tongs  or 
a  turn  of  the  milliner's  fingers." 

It  is  in  virtue  of  this  supreme  indifference  to  conse 
quences,  —  this  sublime  contempt  of  disease  and  death 
as  compared  with  the  loss  of  the  smallest  personal  ad 
vantage,  —  that  woman  has  attained  the  power  of  re 
sistance  to  exposure  which  so  astonishes  the  male  sex. 
Think  of  her  thin  shoes  and  stockings,  her  bare  or 
scarcely  protected  neck  and  arms,  her  little  rose-leaf 
bonnet,  by  the  side  of  the  woollen  socks,  the  layers  of 
flannel  and  broadcloth,  and  the  warm  hats  and  caps 
of  her  effeminate  companion  !  Our  cautions  are  of  no 
use,  except  to  the  fragile  sex,  —  our  brothers  in  suscep 
tibility  and  danger. 

"  A  man  will  tell  you  he  has  the  constitution  of  a 
horse  ;  but  the  health  of  a  horse  is  notoriously  delicate, 
as  Shakespeare  reminds  you.  A  woman  is  compared 
to  a  bird  by  poets  and  lovers.  It  should  be  to  a  snow 
bird,"  says  the  late  Professor  Harris. 

We  may  learn  a  lesson  in  the  matter  of  clothing  from 
the  trainers  and  jockeys.  They  blanket  their  horses 
carefully  after  exercise.  We  come  in  heated,  and 
throw  off  our  outside  clothing.  Why  should  not  a  man 


228       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

be  cared  for  as  well  as  Flora  Temple  or  Dexter  ?  We 
dress  for  summer,  and  the  next  thing  down  goes  the 
thermometer,  and  we  run  a  risk  which  the  owner  of  a 
trotting  horse  would  not  subject  his  beast  to  for  a 
thousand  dollars.  Last  Sunday  the  thermometer  was 
74°  Fahrenheit  in  the  morning ;  on  Monday  at  the  same 
hour,  it  was  56°.  Yet  when  one  has  once  worn  sum 
mer  clothes,  it  is  hard  to  change  back,  and  we  pre 
fer  to  take  the  chance  of  rheumatism,  pleurisy,  "  con 
gestion  of  the  lungs,"  or  common  catarrh,  which  is 
troublesome  enough  without  going  further. 

The  conveniences  for  the  use  of  the  BATH  constitute 
one  great  advantage  that  city  life  offers  over  that  of 
common  country-houses.  Habit  makes  it  one  of  the 
essentials  of  comfortable  existence.  A  morning  shower- 
bath  is  a  cordial  better  than  any  sherry-wine  bitters. 
A  plunge  into  the  salt  sea  brings  back  youth  in  a  way 
to  shame  Mrs.  Allen's  hair-restorer.  But  remember 
Alexander  at  the  Cydnus,  going  in  too  hot !  Remem 
ber  Leon  Javelli,  the  great  performer  on  the  tight 
rope,  who  stayed  in  too  long !  One  of  the  finest  human 
organisms  ever  shown,  in  the  flower  of  physical  per 
fection,  was  doubled  up  in  spasms,  and  straightened 
out  and  laid  in  the  earth  abnost  before  the  cord  had 
ceased  quivering  under  his  elastic  bounds.  It  is  a 
word  and  a  blow  with  Nature  when  her  laws  are  in 
sulted  or  trifled  with. 

It  is  by  no  means  so  easy  to  lay  down  precise  rules 
about  EXERCISE  as  many  at  first  thought  suppose. 
When  one  is  told  to  walk  two  or  four  hours  daily,  it 
seems  as  if  the  measure  of  time  was  the  measure  of 
work  to  be  done.  But  one  person  weighs  a  hundred 
pounds  and  a  little  over,  a  large  part  of  it  muscle, 
which  does  not  feel  its  own  weight ;  and  another  person 


THE   HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS  MANAGEMENT.      229 

weighs  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  three  quarters 
of  it  inert  matter,  nearly  as  hard  to  carry  as  if  it  were 
packed  in  boxes  and  bundles.  Think  of  Miles  Dar- 
den,  the  great  North-Carolinian,  weighing,  as  we  are 
told,  over  one  thousand  pounds,  walking  off  a  dozen 
miles  in  the  company  of  a  feather-weight  who  seems  to 
himself  a  little  lighter  than  nothing,  feeling  so  "  corky," 
in  fact,  that  he  almost  wants  anchoring,  like  a  balloon, 
to  keep  him  down !  Some  of  these  very  heavy  people 
have  but  little  muscle  to  work  with.  I  have  seen  those 
fine  muscular  masses  which  emboss  the  front  aspect  of 
the  Torso  of  the  Vatican  with  swelling  reliefs,  reduced 
to  little  more  than  the  thickness  of  a  sheet  of  paper, 
in  a  man,  too,  of  large  proportions.  Some  persons  are 
thought  lazy  when  they  are  simply  over-weighted  and 
under-muscled.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
persons  of  the  pattern  of  Joseph  Hailes,  "  the  spider," 
as  they  called  him,  a  noted  prize-fighter,  with  muscles 
slender  as  those  of  monkeys,  but  who  can  use  them  as 
if  they  were  made  of  iron.  Whether  an  individual  re 
quires  one  hour's  exercise  in  the  open  air  daily,  or 
three  or  four,  must  depend  in  great  measure  on  how 
much  the  person  has  to  carry. 

Two  points  deserve  special  attention  connected  with 
exercise,  —  the  aeration  of  the  blood  and  its  distribu 
tion.  Exercise  drives  it  more  rapidly  through  the 
lungs,  and  quickens  the  breathing  in  proportion.  You 
will  see  persons,  not  in  love  so  far  as  is  known,  who 
sigh  heavily  from  time  to  time.  It  is  simply  to  make 
up  the  arrears  of  their  languid  respiration,  which 
leaves  the  blood  over-carbonated  and  under-oxygen 
ated.  A  deep  breath  sets  it  right  for  the  moment,  as 
the  payment  of  a  long  bill  disposes  of  many  petty 
charges  that  have  been  accumulating. 


230       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

During  exercise  the  muscles  want  blood,  and  suck 
it  up  like  so  many  sponges.  But  when  the  brain  is 
working,  that  wants  blood,  and  when  the  stomach  is 
digesting,  that  wants  blood,  and  so  of  other  organs. 
Therefore  the  best  time  for  brain  work  is  before  exer 
cising  in  the  morning ;  for  those  who  are  strong  enough, 
before  breakfast,  but  for  others  after  the  light  meal  of 
the  morning,  which  does  not  task  the  digestive  powers 
to  any  great  extent.  After  a  couple  of  hours'  exercise 
the  mind  is  no  longer  what  it  was  when  it  had  all  the 
blood  to  itself.  You  may  criticise  what  you  wrote 
while  the  brain  had  the  whole  circulation  to  draw  upon, 
but  insight  and  invention  are  dim  and  languid  com 
pared  to  what  they  were  in  the  virgin  hours  of  the 
morning.  The  cream  of  the  day  rises  with  the  sun. 

The  effects  of  prolonged  training  on  the  after  con 
ditions  of  the  subjects  of  it  have  been  often  questioned. 
The  recent  death  of  Chambers,  the  rowing  champion 
of  England,  of  consumption,  has  called  attention  anew 
to  the  matter.  It  is  an  old  story,  however,  that  ath 
letes  are  liable  to  become  phthisical.  A  case  has  been 
mentioned  where  a  pugilist  died  of  consumption  not 
long  after  winning  a  prize-fight.  Charles  Freeman, 
the  "  American  Giant,"  who  fought  the  "  Tipton 
Slasher"  in  the  prize-ring,  died  of  the  same  disease, 
as  did  the  "Spider"  above  referred  to.  Dr.  Hope 
has  pointed  out  the  danger  of  bringing  on  disease  of 
the  heart  by  over-exertions  in  boat-races  and  Alpine 
excursions.  When  a  young  man  strains  himself  in  a 
rowing-match  until  he  grows  black  in  the  face,  he  is 
putting  his  circulating  and  breathing  organs  to  the 
hazard  of  injuries  which  are  liable  to  outlast  the  mem 
ory  of  all  his  brief  triumphs.  "  It  is  the  pace  that 
kills,"  is  an  axiom  as  applicable  to  men  as  to  horses. 


THE  HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      231 

I  am  disposed  to  be  as  charitable  to  human  infirm 
ity  in  the  matter  of  SLEEP  as  I  am  in  that  of  exercise. 
I  would  no  more  accept  Sir  Edward  Coke's  limit  of 
six  hours  than  I  would  indorse  his  other  arrangements. 
Eight  hours  seem  to  me  a  fairer  average,  but  many 
can  do  with  less,  and  some  may  want  more.  General 
Pichegru  is  said  to  have  found  four  enough.  Some, 
like  Napoleon,  can  help  themselves  to  sleep  whenever 
they  will.  Our  great  General  can  catch  a  nap  on  the 
field  while  a  battle  is  going  on.  It  is  much  more  com 
mon  to  find  a  difficulty  in  going  to  sleep  after  getting 
to  bed.  Those  who  are  wakeful  can  do  a  good  deal 
by  forming  the  habit  of  dismissing  all  the  toils  and 
cares  of  the  day,  so  far  as  possible,  during  the  hour 
preceding  their  bedtime.  There  is  good  management, 
as  well  as  piety,  in  closing  the  day  with  an  act  of  de 
votion.  "  Happy  is  the  patient  camel,  happy  is  the 
humble  saint,"  says  the  late  Professor  Harris  ;  "  they 
kneel  when  the  day  is  done,  and  their  burden  is  lifted 
from  them." 

OCCUPATION  of  some  kind  is  necessary  to  the  health 
of  mind  and  body  in  most  persons.  Yet  we  are  so 
lazy  by  nature  that,  unless  we  are  forced  to  work,  we 
are  apt  to  do  nothing.  For  this  reason  it  is  that  Cole 
ridge  would  have  every  literary  man  exercise  a  pro 
fession.  The  body  requires  a  certain  amount  of  at 
mospheric  pressure  to  the  square  inch.  The  mind 
must  have  the  pressure  of  incumbent  duties,  or  it  will 
grow  lax  and  spongy  in  texture  for  want  of  it.  For 
want  of  such  pressure,  we  see  so  many  rich  people  al 
ways  restless  in  search  of  rest,  who  cannot  be  easy  in 
Fifth  Avenue  or  Beacon  Street  for  thinking  of  the 
Boulevards,  and  once  there,  are  counting  the  days  un- 


232       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFK. 

til  they  are  home  again.  A  life  of  mere  gossip  and 
amusement  may  do  well  enough  in  some  Old  World 
capitals,  but  is  desperate  in  American  cities.  A  wicked 
Parisian  would  find  it  punishment  enough  to  be  sent 
to  Philadelphia  or  New  York,  or  even  Boston,  when 
he  dies. 

Do  what  you  will  to  keep  well,  the  time  will  proba 
bly  come  when  you  will  want  the  advice  of  a  PHYSI 
CIAN.  If  you  will  trust  a  lecturer,  who  does  not  prac 
tise,  and  has  not  practised  for  a  good  many  years, 
he  will  give  you  some  rules  in  which  he  believes  you 
may  put  confidence.  Choose  a  sensible  man,  person 
ally  agreeable  to  yourself,  if  possible,  whom  you  know 
to  have  had  a  good  education,  to  stand  well  with  the 
members  of  his  own  profession,  and  of  whom  other  sci 
entific  men,  as  well  as  physicians,  speak  respectfully. 
Do  not  select  your  medical  adviser  on  the  strength  of 
any  vague  stories  of  his  "  success."  The  best  physi 
cian  in  a  city  loses  the  largest  number  of  patients. 
You  stare,  no  doubt,  but  reflect  a  moment.  He  is 
called  to  all  the  hopeless  cases.  His  patients  trust  him 
to  the  last,  whereas  people  are  apt  to  drop  the  charla 
tan  as  soon  as  they  are  in  real  danger. 

Once  having  chosen  your  medical  adviser,  be  slow 
to  leave  him,  except  for  good  cause.  He  has  served 
an  apprenticeship  to  your  constitution.  I  saw  a  lady 
not  many  months  ago,  who,  in  talking  of  an  illness 
from  which  she  had  long  suffered,  told  me  she  had 
consulted  twenty-six  different  doctors  in  succession, 
and  was  then  in  search  of  a  twenty-seventh.  I  did  not 
tell  her  she  was  as  bad  as  Don  Giovanni,*  but  I  was 
glad  my  name  did  not  have  to  be  added  to  the  roll  of 
her  professional  conquests,  though  my  visit  was  a  very 


THE  HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      233 

pleasant  and  friendly  one.  I  recommended  a  great 
master  in  one  of  the  specialties,  then  residing  in  this 
neighborhood,  who  I  thought  would  understand  her 
case  better  than  anybody  else,  and  that  she  should 
stick  to  him  and  his  prescriptions,  and  give  up  this  but 
terfly  wandering  from  one  camomile  flower  of  medicine 
to  another. 

What  is  the  honest  truth  about  the  medical  art? 
That  by  far  the  largest  number  of  diseases  which  phy 
sicians  are  called  to  treat  will  get  well  at  any  rate, 
even  in  spite  of  reasonably  bad  treatment.  That  of 
the  other  fraction,  a  certain  number  will  inevitably  die, 
whatever  is  done.  That  there  remains  a  small  margin 
of  cases  where  the  life  of  the  patient  depends  on  the 
skill  of  the  physician.  That  drugs  now  and  then 
save  life  ;  that  they  often  shorten  disease  and  remove 
symptoms ;  but  that  they  are  second  in  importance  to 
food,  air,  temperature,  and  the  other  hygienic  influ 
ences.  That  was  a  shrewd  trick  of  Alexander's  phy 
sician,  on  the  occasion  before  referred  to,  of  his  at 
tack  after  bathing.  He  asked  three  days  to  prepare 
his  medicine.  Time  is  the  great  physician  as  well  as 
the  great  consoler. 

Sensible  men  in  all  ages  have  trusted  most  to  Na 
ture.  Hippocrates,  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago, 
laid  down  the  whole  doctrine  in  just  three  words. 
Sydenham,  two  hundred  years  ago,  applied  it  in  prac 
tice.  He  was  called  to  a  young  man  who  had  been 
well  blooded  and  physicked  and  dieted  by  his  doctor, 
but  seemed  not  to  be  doing  very  well.  The  great  phy 
sician  sat  down  and  entered  into  discourse  with  the 
young  man.  Presently  out  went  his  under  lip,  like  a 
pouting  child's,  and  the  next  thing,  he  burst  into  a 
terrible  passion  of  crying.  It  is  as  a  fit  of  the  mother, 


234       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

said  the  English  Hippocrates,  and  proceedeth  from 
naught  but  emptiness.  Let  him  have  a  roast  chicken 
to  his  dinner,  with  a  cup  of  canary.  And  so  his  disor- 
der  left  him.  "  Temperance,  hard  work,  and  absti 
nence  from  medicine,"  —  such  was  the  formula  given 
us  the  other  day  by  our  admirable  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow 
as  the  secret  of  his  own  long-continued  health  of  mind 
and  body,  and  the  essence  of  the  experience  of  a  life 
devoted  more  especially  to  the  practice  of  the  healing 
art  and  the  teaching  of  the  materia  medica. 

You  are  liable  to  hear  babble  in  some  quarters 
about  "  old  school  "  and  "  new  school,'*  about  "  allo- 
pathists"  and  other  pathists,  and  may  at  last  come  to 
think  there  is  a  great  division  in  the  field  of  medical 
practice,  two  or  more  contradictory  doctrines  being  bal 
anced  against  each  other.  Now  it  is  just  as  well  to 
understand  the  unmeaning  character  of  this  way  of 
talking. 

People  may  call  themselves  what  they  like,  but  if 
they  apply  a  term  to  their  neighbors,  they  should  see 
that  it  is  one  which  belongs  to  them.  The  medical 
profession,  as  represented  by  the  Massachusetts  Medi 
cal  Society,  for  instance,  or  by  the  teachers  in  the 
leading  universities  of  the  country,  are  not  "  allopa- 
thists  "  at  all ;  but  if  they  must  have  a  Greek  name 
of  this  pattern,  they  are  pantopathists  ;  that  is,  they 
profess  only  this  simple  doctrine,  to  employ  any  agency 
which  experience  shows  to  be  useful  in  the  treatment 
of  disease.  Anything  that  can  make  a  decent  show 
for  itself  is  sure  of  a  trial  at  their  hands.  But  then  they 
are  the  judges  of  what  constitutes  a  presumption  in 
favor  of  any  alleged  remedy,  and  they  are  a  great  deal 
better  judges  than  you,  or  than  your  aunt,  or  your 
grandmother,  because  they  iiave  made  a  business  of 


THE  HUMAN   BODY   AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      235 

studying  the  history  of  disease,  and  know  how  easy  it 
is  for  people  to  deceive  themselves  and  others  in  the 
matter  of  remedies. 

Shall  they  try  the  medicines  advertised  with  the  cer 
tificate  of  justices  of  the  peace,  of  clergymen,  or  even 
members  of  Congress?  Certainly,  it  may  be  an 
swered,  any  one  of  them  which  makes  a  good  case  for 
itself.  But  the  difficulty  is,  that  the  whole  class  of 
commercial  remedies  are  shown  by  long  experience, 
with  the  rarest  exceptions,  to  be  very  sovereign  cures 
for  empty  pockets,  and  of  no  peculiar  efficacy  for  any 
thing  else.  You  may  be  well  assured  that  if  any 
really  convincing  evidence  was  brought  forward  in  be 
half  of  the  most  vulgar  nostrum,  the  chemists  would 
go  at  once  to  work  to  analyze  it,  the  physiologists  to 
experiment  with  it,  and  the  young  doctors  would  all 
be  trying  it  on  their  own  bodies  if  not  on  their  patients* 
But  we  do  not  think  it  worth  while,  as  a  general  rule, 
to  send  a  Cheap  Jack's  gilt  chains  and  lockets  to  the 
mint  to  be  tested  for  gold.  We  know  they  are  made 
to  sell,  and  so  with  the  pills  and  potions. 

Remember  this  then,  that  the  medical  profession, 
fairly  enough  represented  by  the  bodies  I  have  men 
tioned,  have  no  theory  or  doctrine  which  prevents 
them  from  using  anything  that  will  do  you  good.  If 
they  do  not  adopt  this  or  that  alleged  remedy  which 
your  aunt  or  your  grandmother  praises  as  a  panacea, 
it  is  because  they  do  not  think  a  case  is  made  out 
in  its  favor.  They  consider  the  witnesses  incompe 
tent  or  dishonest,  it  may  be,  or  the  evidence  wholly 
unsatisfactory  on  its  own  showing.  Think  how  rap 
idly  any  real  discovery  is  appropriated  and  comes  into 
universal  use ! 

Take  anaesthetics,  take  the  use  of  bromide  of  potas- 


236       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

siuin,  and  see  how  easily  they  obtained  acceptance.  If 
you  are  disposed  to  think  any  of  the  fancy  systems  has 
brought  forward  any  new  remedy  of  value  which  the 
medical  profession  has  been  slow  to  accept,  ask  any 
fancy  practitioner  to  name  it.  Let  him  name  one,  — 
the  best  his  system  claims,  —  not  a  hundred,  but  one. 
A  single  new,  efficient,  trustworthy  remedy  which  the 
medical  profession  can  test  as  they  are  ready  to  test, 
before  any  scientific  tribunal,  opium,  quinine,  ether, 
the  bromide  of  potassium.  There  is  no  such  remedy 
on  which  any  of  the  fancy  practitioners  dare  stake  his 
reputation.  If  there  were,  it  would  long  ago  have 
been  accepted,  though  it  had  been  flowers  of  brim 
stone  from  the  borders  of  Styx  or  Cocytus. 

No,  my  kind  listener,  you  may  be  certain  that  if 
you  are  the  patient  of  a  sensible  practitioner  who  be 
longs  to  the  "  old  school,"  if  you  will  call  it  so,  of  Hip 
pocrates  and  Sydenham,  of  common  sense  as  well  as 
science,  he  will  not  be  scared  by  names  out  of  any 
thing  like  to  help  you  ;  that  he  will  use  a  cold  lotion 
or  a  hot  cataplasm  to  your  inflamed  limb,  a  cool  or 
warm  drink  in  your  fever,  as  one  or  the  other  may  feel 
most  comfortable  and  seem  like  to  do  most  good,  with 
out  troubling  himself  whether  it  is  according  to  this 
"  pathy  "  or  that  "  pathy,"  in  the  jargon  of  half -taught 
pretenders.  But  as  your  life  and  health  are  your  own, 
you  have  a  perfect  right  to  invest  them  in  patent  med 
icines  and  fantastic  systems  to  your  heart's  content. 
The  same  right  that  you  have  to  invest  your  money  in 
tickets  to  the  different  gift  enterprises,  or  (if  a  bache 
lor)  to  answer  the  advertisements  of  the  refined  and 
accomplished  ladies,  twenty-nine  years  old  and  under, 
who  wish  to  open  a  correspondence  with  middle-aged 
gentlemen  of  means,  with  a  view  to  matrimony. 


THE   HUMAN   BODY  AND   ITS   MANAGEMENT.      237 

Only  I  would  n't  if  I  were  you.  You  say  you  can 
not  decide  between  what  you  choose  to  consider  as 
opposing  or  rival  doctrines  or  theories.  I  have  ex 
plained  to  you  that  the  medical  profession  have  no 
doctrine  or  theory  which  prevents  them  from  using 
anything  which  has  been  proved  useful.  They  do  not 
commonly  try  the  quack  medicines  on  their  patients ; 
there  is  no  sufficient  reason  why  they  should  believe 
the  advertisements  of  the  commercial  remedies.  But 
the  public  tries  them  very  largely ;  and  if  any  nos 
trum  proves  really  and  exceptionally  efficacious,  the 
fact  will  certainly  establish  itself,  as  it  did  in  the  case 
of  the  Eau  meditinale,  one  of  the  very  few  secret  rem 
edies  which  was  ever  shown  by  true  experience  to  pos 
sess  any  special  virtues. 

On  the  whole,  you  will  act  wisely  to  adopt  the  prin 
ciple  that  it  is  better  to  die  in  the  hands  of  a  regu 
lar  physician  than  to  get  well  under  those  of  a  char 
latan  or  fancy  practitioner.  Wait  one  moment.  I  do 
not  say  that  it  is  better  to  die  of  any  one  disease  in 
good  hands  than  to  get  well  of  that  same  disease  in 
bad  ones.  That  would  be  a  rather  robust  assertion. 
But  most  people  must  get  well  of  many  complaints  in 
the  course  of  their  lives,  and  it  will  be  probably  rather 
sooner  and  more  comfortably  in  good  than  in  bad 
hands.  Besides,  it  is  a  bad  thing  that  an  ignorant  or 
incompetent  person  should  get  the  credit  of  curing 
them.  Somebody  will  have  to  suffer  for  it  sooner  or 
I  later.  On  the  other  hand,  as  all  must  die  at  one  time 

or  another,  it  is  a  good  thing  that  the  last  function  of 
mortality,  taking  off  its  garments,  should  be  tenderly 
watched  by  faithful,  intelligent,  and  instructed  profes 
sional  friends. 
I  And  this  leads  me  to  say  that  this  last  function,  in- 


238       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

volving  a  physiological  process  or  series  of  processes, 
as  has  been  explained,  deserves  far  more  study  and  at 
tention  on  the  part  of  the  physician  than  it  has  gener 
ally  received.  The  medical  art  has  performed  its  duty 
in  the  face  of  traditional  prejudices,  in  smoothing  the 
bed  of  anguish  to  which  maternity  had  been  hope 
lessly  condemned.  It  owes  the  same  assertion  of  its 
prerogative  to  the  sufferings  sometimes  attending  the 
last  period  of  life.  That  euthanasia  often  accorded 
by  nature,  sometimes  prevented  by  want  of  harmony 
in  the  hesitating  and  awkwardly  delaying  functions, 
not  rarely  disturbed  by  intrusive  influences,  is  a  right 
of  civilized  humanity.  The  anaesthetics  mercifully 
granted  to  a  world  grown  sensitive  in  proportion  to  its 
culture  will  never  have  fulfilled  their  beneficent  pur 
pose  until  they  have  done  for  the  scythe  of  death  what 
they  have  done  for  the  knife  of  the  surgeon  and  the 
sharper  trial  hour  of  woman. 

And  with  this  suggestion,  I  conclude  my  brief  dis 
courses. 


vn. 

CINDERS  FROM  THE  ASHES. 

THE  personal  revelations  contained  in  my  report  of 
certain  breakfast-table  conversations  were  so  charitably 
listened  to  and  so  good-naturedly  interpreted,  that  I 
may  be  in  danger  of  becoming  over-communicative. 
Still,  I  should  never  have  ventured  to  tell  the  trivial 
experiences  here  thrown  together,  were  it  not  that 
my  brief  story  is  illuminated  here  and  there  by  a 
glimpse  of  some  shining  figure  that  trod  the  same  path 
with  me  for  a  time,  or  crossed  it,  leaving  a  momentary 
or  lasting  brightness  in  its  track.  I  remember  that, 
in  furnishing  a  chamber  some  years  ago,  I  was  struck 
with  its  dull  aspect  as  I  looked  round  on  the  black- 
walnut  chairs  and  bedstead  and  bureau.  "  Make  me 
a  large  and  handsomely  wrought  gilded  handle  to  the 
key  of  that  dark  chest  of  drawers,"  I  said  to  the  fur 
nisher.  It  was  done,  and  that  one  luminous  point  re 
deemed  the  sombre  apartment  as  the  evening  star 
glorifies  the  dusky  firmament.  So,  my  loving  reader, 
—  and  to  none  other  can  such  table-talk  as  this  be  ad 
dressed,  —  I  hope  there  will  be  lustre  enough  in  one 
or  other  of  the  names  with  which  I  shall  gild  my  page 
to  redeem  the  dulness  of  all  that  is  merely  personal 
in  my  recollections. 

After  leaving  the  school  of  Dame  Prentiss,  best  re 
membered  by  infantine  loves,  those  pretty  preludes  of 
more  serious  passions ;  by  the  great  forfeit-basket,  filled 


240       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

with  its  miscellaneous  waifs  and  deodands,  and  by  the 
long  willow  stick  by  the  aid  of  which  the  good  old 
body,  now  stricken  in  years  and  unwieldy  in  person, 
could  stimulate  the  sluggish  faculties  or  check  the  mis 
chievous  sallies  of  the  child  most  distant  from  her 
ample  chair,  —  a  school  where  I  think  my  most  noted 
schoolmate  was  the  present  Bishop  of  Delaware,  —  I 
became  the  pupil  of  Master  William  Biglow.  This 
generation  is  not  familiar  with  his  title  to  renown,  al 
though  he  fills  three  columns  and  a  half  in  Mr.  Duy- 
ckinck's  "  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature."  He 
was  a  humorist  hardly  robust  enough  for  more  than  a 
brief  local  immortality.  I  am  afraid  we  were  an  un 
distinguished  set,  for  I  do  not  remember  anybody 
near  a  bishop  in  dignity  graduating  from  our  benches. 

At  about  ten  years  of  age  I  began  going  to  what  we 
always  called  the  "  Port  School,"  because  it  was  kept 
at  Cambridgeport,  a  mile  from  the  College.  This 
suburb  was  at  that  time  thinly  inhabited,  and,  being 
much  of  it  marshy  and  imperfectly  reclaimed,  had  a 
dreary  look  as  compared  with  the  thriving  College  set 
tlement.  The  tenants  of  the  many  beautiful  mansions 
that  have  sprung  up  along  Main  Street,  Harvard  Street, 
and  Broadway  can  hardly  recall  the  time  when,  except 
the  "  Dana  House  "  and  the  "  Opposition  House  "  and 
the  "  Clark  House,"  these  roads  were  almost  all  the 
way  bordered  by  pastures  until  we  reached  the  "  stores  " 
of  Main  Street,  or  were  abreast  of  that  forlorn  "  First 
liow"  of  Harvard  Street.  We  called  the  boys  of 
that  locality  "  Port-chucks."  They  called  us  "  Cam 
bridge-chucks,"  but  we  got  along  very  well  together  in 
the  main. 

Among  my  schoolmates  at  the  Port  School  was  a 
young  girl  of  singular  loveliness.  I  once  before  re- 


CINDERS   PROM   THE   ASHES.  241 

ferred  to  her  as  "the  golden  blonde,"  but  did  not 
trust  myself  to  describe  her  charms.  The  day  of  her 
appearance  in  the  school  was  almost  as  much  a  revela 
tion  to  us  boys  as  the  appearance  of  Miranda  was  to 
Caliban.  Her  abounding  natural  curls  were  so  full  of 
sunshine,  her  skin  was  so  delicately  white,  her  smile 
and  her  voice  were  so  all-subduing,  that  half  our  heads 
were  turned.  Her  fascinations  were  everywhere  con 
fessed  a  few  years  afterwards  ;  and  when  I  last  met 
her,  though  she  said  she  was  a  grandmother,  1  ques 
tioned  her  statement,  for  her  winning  looks  and  ways 
would  still  have  made  her  admired  in  any  company. 

Not  far  from  the  golden  blonde  were  two  small  boys, 
one  of  them  very  small,  perhaps  the  youngest  boy  in 
school,  both  ruddy,  sturdy,  quiet,  reserved,  sticking 
loyally  by  each  other,  the  oldest,  however,  beginning 
to  enter  into  social  relations  with  us  of  somewhat  ma- 
turer  years.  One  of  these  two  boys  was  destined  to 
be  widely  known,  first  in  literature,  as  author  of  one 
of  the  most  popular  books  of  its  time  and  which  is 
freighted  for  a  long  voyage  ;  then  as  an  eminent  law 
yer  ;  a  man  who,  if  his  countrymen  are  wise,  will  yet 
be  prominent  in  the  national  councils.  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  Junior,  is  the  name  he  bore  and  bears;  he 
found  it  famous,  and  will  bequeath  it  a  fresh  re 
nown. 

Sitting  on  the  girls'  benches,  conspicuous  among 
the  school-girls  of  unlettered  origin  by  that  look  which 
rarely  fails  to  betray  hereditary  and  congenital  culture, 
was  a  young  person  very  nearly  of  my  own  age.  She 
came  with  the  reputation  of  being  "  smart,"  as  we 
should  have  called  it,  clever  as  we  say  nowadays. 
This  was  Margaret  Fuller,  the  only  one  among  us  who, 
like  "Jean  Paul,"  like  "The  Duke,"  like  "  Bettina," 


242       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

has  slipped  the  cable  of  the  more  distinctive  name  to 
which  she  was  anchored,  and  floats  on  the  waves  of 
speech  as  "Margaret."  Her  air  to  her  schoolmates 
was  marked  by  a  certain  stateliness  and  distance,  as  if 
she  had  other  thoughts  than  theirs  and  was  not  of  them. 
She  was  a  great  student  and  a  great  reader  of  what  she 
used  to  call  "  n&w-ve'ls."  I  remember  her  so  well  as 
she  appeared  at  school  and  later,  that  I  regret  that  she 
had  not  been  faithfully  given  to  canvas  or  marble  in 
the  day  of  her  best  looks.  None  know  her  aspect  who 
have  not  seen  her  living.  Margaret,  as  I  remember 
her  at  school  and  afterwards,  was  tall,  fair  complex- 
ioned,  with  a  watery,  aqua-marine  lustre  in  her  light 
eyes,  which  she  used  to  make  small,  as  one  does  who 
looks  at  the  sunshine.  A  remarkable  point  about  her 
was  that  long,  flexile  neck,  arching  and  undulating  in 
strange  sinuous  movements,  which  one  who  loved  her 
would  compare  to  those  of  a  swan,  and  one  who  loved 
her  not  to  those  of  the  ophidian  who  tempted  our  com 
mon  mother.  Her  talk  was  affluent,  magisterial,  de  haut 
en  bas,  some  would  say  euphuistic,  but  surpassing  the 
talk  of  women  in  breadth  and  audacity.  Her  face  kin 
dled  and  reddened  and  dilated  in  every  feature  as  she 
spoke,  and,  as  I  once  saw  her  in  a  fine  storm  of  indig 
nation  at  the  supposed  ill-treatment  of  a  relative, 
showed  itself  capable  of  something  resembling  what 
Milton  calls  the  viraginian  aspect. 

Little  incidents  bear  telling  when  they  recall  any 
thing  of  such  a  celebrity  as  Margaret.  I  remember 
being  greatly  awed  once,  in  our  school-days,  with  the 
maturity  of  one  of  her  expressions.  Some  themes 
were  brought  home  from  the  school  for  examination  by 
my  father,  among  them  one  of  he'rs.  I  took  it  up  with 
a  certain  emulous  interest  (for  I  fancied  at  that  day 


CINDERS   FROM   THE  ASHES.  243 

that  I  too  had  drawn  a  prize,  say  a  five-dollar  one,  at 
least,  in  the  great  intellectual  life-lottery)  and  read 
the  first  words. 

"  It  is  a  trite  remark,"  she  began. 

I  stopped.  Alas !  I  did  not  know  what  trite  meant. 
How  could  I  ever  judge  Margaret  fairly  after  such  a 
crushing  discovery  of  her  superiority  ?  I  doubt  if  I 
ever  did ;  yet  oh,  how  pleasant  it  would  have  been,  at 
about  the  age,  say,  of  threescore  and  ten,  to  rake  over 
these  ashes  for  cinders  with  her,  —  she  in  a  snowy  cap, 
and  I  in  a  decent  peruke ! 

After  being  five  years  at  the  Port  School,  the  time 
drew  near  when  I  was  to  enter  college.  It  seemed  ad 
visable  to  give  me  a  year  of  higher  training,  and  for 
that  end  some  public  school  was  thought  to  offer  ad 
vantages.  Phillips  Academy  at  Andover  was  well 
known  to  us.  We  had  been  up  there,  my  father  and 
myself,  at  anniversaries.  Some  Boston  boys  of  well- 
known  and  distinguished  parentage  had  been  scholars 
there  very  lately, —  Master  Edmund  Quincy,  Master 
Samuel  Hurd  Walley,  Master  Nathaniel  Parker  Wil 
lis,  —  all  promising  youth,  who  fulfilled  their  promise. 

I  do  not  believe  there  was  any  thought  of  getting  a 
little  respite  of  quiet  by  my  temporary  absence,  but  I 
have  wondered  that  there  was  not.  Exceptional  boys 
of  fourteen  or  fifteen  make  home  a  heaven,  it  is  true ; 
but  I  have  suspected,  late  in  life,  that  I  was  not  one  of 
the  exceptional  kind.  I  had  tendencies  in  the  direc 
tion  of  flageolets  and  octave  flutes.  I  had  a  pistol  and 
a  gun,  and  popped  at  everything  that  stirred,  pretty 
nearly,  except  the  house-cat.  Worse  than  this,  I  would 
buy  a  cigar  and  smoke  it  by  instalments,  putting  it 
meantime  in  the  barrel  of  my  pistol,  by  a  stroke  of 
ingenuity  which  it  gives  me  a  grim  pleasure  to  recall ; 


244       PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

for  no  maternal  or  other  female  eyes  would  explore 
the  cavity  of  that  dread  implement  in  search  of  con 
traband  commodities. 

It  was  settled,  then,  that  I  should  go  to  Phillips 
Academy,  and  preparations  were  made  that  I  might 
join  the  school  at  the  beginning  of  the  autumn. 

In  due  time  I  took  my  departure  in  the  old  carriage, 
a  little  modernized  from  the  pattern  of  my  Lady  Boun- 
tiful's,  and  we  jogged  soberly  along,  —  kind  parents 
and  slightly  nostalgic  boy,  —  towards  the  seat  of  learn 
ing,  some  twenty  miles  away.  Up  the  old  West  Cam 
bridge  road,  now  North  Avenue;  past  Davenport's 
tavern,  with  its  sheltering  tree  and  swinging  sign ;  past 
the  old  powder-house,  looking  like  a  colossal  conical 
ball  set  on  end ;  past  the  old  Tidd  House,  one  of  the 
finest  of  the  ante-Revolutionary  mansions ;  past  Miss 
Swan's  great  square  boarding-school,  where  the  music 
of  girlish  laughter  was  ringing  through  the  windy  cor 
ridors  ;  so  on  to  Stoneham,  town  of  the  bright  lake, 
then  darkened  with  the  recent  memory  of  the  barbar 
ous  murder  done  by  its  lonely  shore ;  through  pleasant 
Reading,  with  its  oddly  named  village  centres,  — 
"  Trapelo,"  "  Read'nwoodeend,"  as  rustic  speech  had 
it,  and  the  rest ;  through  Wilmington,  then  renowned 
for  its  hops  ;  so  at  last  into  the  hallowed  borders  of  the 
academic  town. 

It  was  a  shallow,  two-story  white  house  before  which 
we  stopped,  just  at  the  entrance  of  the  central  village, 
the  residence  of  a  very  worthy  professor  in  the  theo 
logical  seminary,  —  learned,  amiable,  exemplary,  but 
thought  by  certain  experts  to  be  a  little  questionable 
in  the  matter  of  homoousianism,  or  some  such  doctrine. 
There  was  a  great  rock  that  showed  its  round  back  in 
the  narrow  front  yard.  It  looked  cold  and  hard  ;  but 


GENDERS   FROM  THE   ASHES.  245 

it  hinted  firmness  and  indifference  to  the  sentiments  fast 
struggling  to  get  uppermost  in  my  youthful  bosom ;  for 
I  was  not  too  old  for  home-sickness,  —  who  is  ?  The 
carriage  and  my  fond  companions  had  to  leave  me  at 
last.  I  saw  it  go  down  the  declivity  that  sloped  south 
ward,  then  climb  the  next  ascent,  then  sink  gradually 
until  the  window  in  the  back  of  it  disappeared  like  an 
eye  that  shuts,  and  leaves  the  world  dark  to  some  wid 
owed  heart. 

Sea-sickness  and  home-sickness  are  hard  to  deal  with 
by  any  remedy  but  time.  Mine  was  not  a  bad  case, 
but  it  excited  sympathy.  There  was  an  ancient,  faded 
old  lady  in  the  house,  very  kindly,  but  very  deaf,  rust 
ling  about  in  dark  autumnal  foliage  of  silk  or  other 
murmurous  fabric,  somewhat  given  to  snuff,  but  a  very 
worthy  gentlewoman  of  the  poor-relation  variety.  She 
comforted  me,  I  well  remember,  but  not  with  apples, 
and  stayed  me,  but  not  with  flagons.  She  went  in  her 
benevolence,  and,  taking  a  blue  and  white  soda-powder, 
mingled  the  same  in  water,  and  encouraged  me  to  drink 
the  result.  It  might  be  a  specific  for  sea-sickness,  but 
it  was  not  for  home-sickness.  The  fiz  was  a  mockery, 
and  the  saline  refrigerant  struck  a  colder  chill  to  my 
despondent  heart.  I  did  not  disgrace  myself,  however, 
and  a  few  days  cured  me,  as  a  week  on  the  water  often 
cures  sea-sickness. 

There  was  a  sober-faced  boy  of  minute  dimensions 
in  the  house,  who  began  to  make  some  advances  to  me, 
and  who,  in  spite  of  all  the  conditions  surrounding  him, 
turned  out,  on  better  acquaintance,  to  be  one  of  the 
most  amusing,  free-spoken,  mocking  little  imps  I  ever 
met  in  my  life.  My  room-mate  came  later.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  clergyman  in  a  neighboring  town,  —  in 
fact  I  may  remark  that  I  knew  a  good  many  clergy- 


246       PAGES   FROM  AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

men's  sons  at  Andover.  He  and  I  went  in  harness  to 
gether  as  well  as  most  boys  do,  I  suspect ;  and  I  have 
no  grudge  against  him,  except  that  once,  when  I  was 
slightly  indisposed,  he  administered  to  me,  —  with  the 
best  intentions,  no  doubt,  —  a  dose  of  Indian  pills, 
which  effectually  knocked  me  out  of  time,  as  Mr. 
Morrissey  would  say,  —  not  quite  into  eternity,  but  so 
near  it  that  I  perfectly  remember  one  of  the  good  la 
dies  told  me  (after  I  had  come  to  my  senses  a  little, 
and  was  just  ready  for  a  sip  of  cordial  and  a  word 
of  encouragement),  with  that  delightful  plainness  of 
speech  which  so  brings  realities  home  to  the  imagina 
tion,  that  "  I  never  should  look  any  whiter  when  1  was 
laid  out  as  a  corpse."  After  my  room-mate  and  I  had 
been  separated  twenty-five  years,  fate  made  us  fellow- 
townsmen  and  acquaintances  once  more  in  Berkshire, 
and  now  again  we  are  close  literary  neighbors ;  for  I 
have  just  read  a  very  pleasant  article,  signed  by  him, 
in  the  last  number  of  the  "  Galaxy."  Does  it  not 
sometimes  seem  as  if  we  were  all  marching  round  and 
round  in  a  circle,  like  the  supernumeraries  who  con 
stitute  the  "  army  "  of  a  theatre,  and  that  each  of  us 
meets  and  is  met  by  the  same  and  only  the  same  peo 
ple,  or  their  doubles,  twice,  thrice,  or  a  little  oftener, 
before  the  curtain  drops  and  the  "  army  "  puts  off  its 
borrowed  clothes  ? 

The  old  Academy  building  had  a  dreary  look,  with 
its  flat  face,  bare  and  uninteresting  as  our  own  "  Uni 
versity  Building  "  at  Cambridge,  since  the  piazza  which 
relieved  its  monotony  was  taken  away,  and,  to  balance 
the  ugliness  thus  produced,  the  hideous  projection  was 
added  to  "  Harvard  Hall."  Two  masters  sat  at 
the  end  of  the  great  room,  —  the  principal  and  his  as 
sistant.  Two  others  presided  in  separate  rooms, — 


CINDERS   FROM   THE   ASHES.  247 

one  of  them  the  late  Rev.  Samuel  Horatio  Stearns,  an 
excellent  and  lovable  man,  who  looked  kindly  on  me, 
and  for  whom  I  always  cherished  a  sincere  regard,  — 
a  clergyman's  son,  too,  which  privilege  I  did  not  al 
ways  find  the  warrant  of  signal  virtues  ;  but  no  mat 
ter  about  that  here,  and  I  have  promised  myself  to  be 
amiable. 

On  the  side  of  the  long  room  was  a  large  clock-dial, 
bearing  these  words :  — 

YOUTH   IS  THE  SEED-TIME   OF  LIFE. 

I  had  indulged  in  a  prejudice,  up  to  that  hour,  that 
youth  was  tlje  budding  time  of  life,  and  this  clock-dial, 
perpetually  twitting  me  with  its  seedy  moral,  always 
had  a  forbidding  look  to  my  vernal  apprehension. 

I  was  put  into  a  seat  with  an  older  and  much  bigger 
boy,  or  youth,  with  a  fuliginous  complexion,  a  dilating 
and  whitening  nostril,  and  a  singularly  malignant 
scowl.  Many  years  afterwards  he  committed  an  act 
of  murderous  violence,  and  ended  by  going  to  finish 
his  days  in  a  madhouse.  His  delight  was  to  kick  my 
shins  with  all  his  might,  under  the  desk,  not  at  all  as 
an  act  of  hostility,  but  as  a  gratifying  and  harmless 
pastime.  Finding  this,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned, 
equally  devoid  of  pleasure  and  profit,  I  managed  to 
get  a  seat  by  another  boy,  the  son  of  a  very  distin 
guished  divine.  He  was  bright  enough,  and  more 
select  in  his  choice  of  recreations,  at  least  during 
school  hours,  than  my  late  homicidal  neighbor.  But 
the  principal  called  me  up  presently,  and  cautioned 
me  against  him  as  a  dangerous  companion.  Could  it 
be  so  ?  If  the  son  of  that  boy's  father  could  not  be 
trusted,  what  boy  in  Christendom  could  ?  It  seemed 
like  the  story  of  the  youth  doomed  to  be  slain  by  a 


248       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

lion  before  reaching  a  certain  age,  and  whose  fate 
found  him  out  in  the  heart  of  the  tower  where  his 
father  had  shut  him  up  for  safety.  Here  was  I,  in  the 
very  dove's  nest  of  Puritan  faith,  and  out  of  one  of  its 
eggs  a  serpent  had  been  hatched  and  was  trying  to 
nestle  in  my  bosom !  I  parted  from  him,  however, 
none  the  worse  for  his  companionship  so  far  as  I  can 
remember. 

Of  the  boys  who  were  at  school  with  me  at  Andover 
one  has  acquired  great  distinction  among  the  scholars 
of  the  land.  One  day  I  observed  a  new  boy  in  a  seat  not 
very  far  from  my  own.  He  was  a  little  fellow,  as  I 
recollect  him,  with  black  hair  and  very  bright  black 
eyes,  when  at  length  I  got  a  chance  to  look  at  them. 
Of  all  the  new-comers  during  my  whole  year  he  was 
the  only  one  whom  the  first  glance  fixed  in  my  memory, 
but  there  he  is  now,  at  this  moment,  just  as  he  caught 
my  eye  on  the  morning  of  his  entrance.  His  head 
was  between  his  hands  (I  wonder  if  he  does  not  some 
times  study  in  that  same  posture  nowadays !)  and  his 
eyes  were  fastened  to  his  book  as  if  he  had  been  read 
ing  a  will  that  made  him  heir  to  a  million.  I  feel  sure 
that  Professor  Horatio  Balch  Hackett  will  not  find 
fault  with  me  for  writing  his  name  under  this  inoffen 
sive  portrait.  Thousands  of  faces  and  forms  that  I 
have  known  more  or  less  familiarly  have  faded  from 
my  remembrance,  but  this  presentment  of  the  youth 
ful  student,  sitting  there  entranced  over  the  page  of 
his  text- book,  —  the  child-father  of  the  distinguished 
scholar  that  was  to  be,  —  is  not  a  picture  framed  and 
hung  up  in  my  mind's  gallery,  but  a  fresco  on  its  walls, 
there  to  remain  so  long  as  they  hold  together. 

My  especial  intimate  was  a  fine,  rosy-faced  boy,  not 
quite  so  free  of  speech  as  myself,  perhaps,  but  with 


CINDERS   FROM  THE  ASHES.  249 

qualities  that  promised  a  noble  manhood,  and  ripened 
into  it  in  due  season.  His  name  was  Phinehas  Barnes, 
and,  if  he  is  inquired  after  in  Portland  or  anywhere  in 
the  State  of  Maine,  something  will  be  heard  to  his  ad 
vantage  from  any  honest  and  intelligent  citizen  of  that 
Commonwealth  who  answers  the  question.  This  was 
one  of  two  or  three  friendships  that  lasted.  There 
were  other  friends  and  classmates,  one  of  them  a  nat 
ural  humorist  of  the  liveliest  sort,  who  would  have 
been  quarantined  in  any  Puritan  port,  his  laugh  was 
so  potently  contagious. 

Of  the  noted  men  of  Andover  the  one  whom  I  re 
member  best  was  Professor  Moses  Stuart.  His  house 
was  nearly  opposite  the  one  in  which  I  resided  and  I 
often  met  him  and  listened  to  him  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Seminary.  I  have  seen  few  more  striking  figures  in 
my  life  than  his,  as  I  remember  it.  Tall,  lean,  with 
strong,  bold  features,  a  keen,  scholarly,  accipitrine  nose, 
thin,  expressive  lips,  great  solemnity  and  impressive- 
ness  of  voice  and  manner,  he  was  my  early  model  of  a 
classic  orator.  His  air  was  Roman,  his  neck  long  and 
bare  like  Cicero's,  and  his  toga,  —  that  is  his  broad 
cloth  cloak,  —  was  carried  on  his  arm,  whatever  might 
have  been  the  weather,  with  such  a  statue-like  rigid 
grace  that  he  might  have  been  turned  into  marble  as 
he  stood,  and  looked  noble  by  the  side  of  the  antiques 
of  the  Vatican. 

Dr.  Porter  was  an  invalid,  with  the  prophetic  hand 
kerchief  bundling  his  throat,  and  his  face  "  festooned  " 
—  as  I  heard  Hillard  say  once,  speaking  of  one  of  our 
College  professors  —  in  folds  and  wrinkles.  HI  health 
gives  a  certain  common  character  to  all  faces,  as  Na 
ture  has  a  fixed  course  which  she  follows  in  disman 
tling  a  human  countenance  :  the  noblest  and  the  fairest 


250       PAGES  FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

is  but  a  death's-head  decently  covered  over  for  the 
transient  ceremony,  of  life,  and  the  drapery  often  falls 
half  off  before  the  procession  has  passed. 

Dr.  Woods  looked  his  creed  more  decidedly,  per 
haps,  than  any  of  the  Professors.  He  had  the  firm 
fibre  of  a  theological  athlete,  and  lived  to  be  old  with 
out  ever  mellowing,  I  think,  into  a  kind  of  half -hetero 
doxy,  as  old  ministers  of  stern  creed  are  said  to  do 
now  and  then,  —  just  as  old  doctors  grow  to  be  sparing 
of  the  more  exasperating  drugs  in  their  later  days. 
He  had  manipulated  the  mysteries  of  the  Infinite  so 
long  and  so  exhaustively,  that  he  would  have  seemed 
more  at  home  among  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  than 
amidst  the  working  clergy  of  our  own  time. 

All  schools  have  their  great  men,  for  whose  advent 
into  life  the  world  is  waiting  in  dumb  expectancy.  In 
due  time  the  world  seizes  upon  these  wondrous  youth, 
opens  the  shell  of  their  possibilities  like  the  valves  of 
an  oyster,  swallows  them  at  a  gulp,  and  they  are  for 
the  most  part  heard  of  no  more.  We  had  two  great 
men,  grown  up  both  of  them.  Which  was  the  more 
awful  intellectual  power  to  be  launched  upon  society, 
we  debated.  Time  cut  the  knot  in  his  rude  fashion  by 
taking  one  away  early,  and  padding  the  other  with 
prosperity  so  that  his  course  was  comparatively  noise 
less  and  ineffective.  We  had  our  societies,  too ;  one 
in  particular,  "  The  Social  Fraternity,"  the  dread  se 
crets  of  which  I  am  under  a  lifelong  obligation  never 
to  reveal.  The  fate  of  William  Morgan,  which  the 
community  learned  not  long  after  this  time,  reminds 
me  of  the  danger  of  the  ground  upon  which  I  am 
treading. 

There  were  various  distractions  to  make  the  time 
not  passed  in  study  a  season  of  relief.  One  good  lady, 


CINDERS   FROM   THE   ASHES.  251 

I  was  told,  was  in  the  habit  of  asking  students  to  her 
house  on  Saturday  afternoons  and  praying  with  and 
for  them.  Bodily  exercise  was  not,  however,  entirely 
superseded  by  spiritual  exercises,  and  a  rudimentary 
form  of  base-ball  and  the  heroic  sport  of  foot-ball  were 
followed  with  some  spirit. 

A  slight  immature  boy  finds  his  materials  of  thought 
and  enjoyment  in  very  shallow  and  simple  sources. 
Yet  a  kind  of  romance  gilds  for  me  the  sober  table 
land  of  that  cold  New  England  hill  where  I  came  in 
contact  with  a  world  so  strange  to  me,  and  destined  to 
leave  such  mingled  and  lasting  impressions.  I  looked 
across  the  valley  to  the  hillside  where  Methuen  hung 
suspended,  and  dreamed  of  its  wooded  seclusion  as  a 
village  paradise.  I  tripped  lightly  down  the  long 
northern  slope  with  facilis  descensus  on  my  lips,  and 
toiled  up  again,  repeating  sed  revocare  gradum.  I 
wandered  in  the  autumnal  woods  that  crown  the  "  In 
dian  Ridge,"  much  wondering  at  that  vast  embank 
ment,  which  we  young  philosophers  believed  with  the 
vulgar  to  be  of  aboriginal  workmanship,  not  less 
curious,  perhaps,  since  we  call  it  an  escar,  and  refer  it 
to  alluvial  agencies.  The  little  Shawshine  was  our 
swimming-school,  and  the  great  Merrimack,  the  right 
arm  of  four  toiling  cities,  was  within  reach  of  a  morn 
ing  stroll.  At  home  we  had  the  small  imp  to  make  us 
laugh  at  his  enormities,  for  he  spared  nothing  in  his 
talk,  and  was  the  drollest  little  living  protest  against 
the  prevailing  solemnities  of  the  locality.  It  did  not 
take  much  to  please  us,  I  suspect,  and  it  is  a  blessing 
that  this  is  apt  to  be  so  with  young  people.  What 
else  could  have  made  us  think  it  great  sport  to  leave 
our  warm  beds  in  the  middle  of  winter  and  "  camp 
out," —  on  the  floor  of  our  room,  —  with  blankets  dis- 


252       PAGES  FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

posed  tent-wise,  except  the  fact  that  to  a  boy  a  new 
discomfort  in  place  of  an  old  comfort  is  often  a  lux 
ury. 

More  exciting  occupation  than  any  of  these  was  to 
watch  one  of  the  preceptors  to  see  if  he  would  not 
drop  dead  while  he  was  praying.  He  had  a  dream  one 
night  that  he  should,  and  looked  upon  it  as  a  warning, 
and  told  it  round  very  seriously,  and  asked  the  boys  to 
come  and  visit  him  in  turn,  as  one  whom  they  were 
soon  to  lose.  More  than  one  boy  kept  his  eye  on  him 
during  his  public  devotions,  possessed  by  the  same 
feeling  the  man  had  who  followed  Van  Amburgh 
about  with  the  expectation,  let  us  not  say  the  hope,  of 
seeing  the  lion  bite  his  head  off  sooner  or  later. 

Let  me  not  forget  to  recall  the  interesting  visit  to 
Haverhill  with  my  room-mate,  and  how  he  led  me  to 
the  mighty  bridge  over  the  Merrimack  which  defied 
the  ice-rafts  of  the  river ;  and  to  the  old  meeting 
house,  where,  in  its  porch,  I  saw  the  door  of  the  an 
cient  parsonage,  with  the  bullet-hole  in  it  through 
which  Benjamin  Rolfe,  the  minister,  was  shot  by  the 
Indians  on  the  29th  of  August,  1708.  What  a  vision 
it  was  when  I  awoke  in  the  morning  to  see  the  fog  on 
the  river  seeming  as  if  it  wrapped  the  towers  and 
spires  of  a  great  city  !  —  for  such  was  my  fancy,  and 
whether  it  was  a  mirage  of  youth  or  a  fantastic  natural 
effect  I  hate  to  inquire  too  nicely. 

My  literary  performances  at  Andover,  if  any  reader 
who  may  have  survived  so  far  cares  to  know,  included 
a  translation  from  Virgil,  out  of  which  I  remember 
this  couplet,  which  had  the  inevitable  cockney  rhyme 
of  beginners :  — 

"  Thus  by  the  power  of  Jove's  imperial  arm 
The  boiling  ocean  trembled  into  calm" 


CINDERS   FROM   THE   ASHES.  253 

Also  a  discussion  with  Master  Phinehas  Barnes  on  the 
case  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  which  he  treated  ar- 
gumentatively  and  I  rhetorically  and  sentimentally. 
My  sentences  were  praised  and  his  conclusions  adopted. 
Also  an  Essay,  spoken  at  the  great  final  exhibition, 
held  in  the  large  hall  up-stairs,  which  hangs  'oddly 
enough  from  the  roof,  suspended  by  iron  rods.  Sub 
ject,  Fancy.  Treatment,  brief  but  comprehensive, 
illustrating  the  magic  power  of  that  brilliant  faculty 
in  charming  life  into  forgetfulness  of  all  the  ills  that 
flesh  is  heir  to,  —  the  gift  of  Heaven  to  every  condi 
tion  and  every  clime,  from  the  captive  in  his  dungeon 
to  the  monarch  on  his  throne  ;  from  the  burning  sands 
of  the  desert  to  the  frozen  icebergs  of  the  poles,  from 
—  but  I  forget  myself. 

This  was  the  last  of  my  coruscations  at  Andover. 
I  went  from  the  Academy  to  Harvard  College,  and 
did  not  visit  the  sacred  hill  again  for  a  long  time. 

On  the  last  day  of  August,  1867,  not  having  been 
at  Andover  for  many  years,  I  took  the  cars  at  noon, 
and  in  an  hour  or  a  little  more  found  myself  at  the 
station,  just  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  My  first  pilgrim 
age  was  to  the  old  elm,  which  I  remembered  so  well 
as  standing  by  the  tavern,  and  of  which  they  used  to 
tell  the  story  that  it  held,  buried  in  it  by  growth,  the 
iron  rings  put  round  it  in  the  old  time  to  keep  the 
Indians  from  chopping  it  with  their  tomahawks.  I 
then  began  the  once  familiar  toil  of  ascending  the 
long  declivity.  Academic  villages  seem  to  change 
very  slowly.  Once  in  a  hundred  years  the  library 
burns  down  with  all  its  books.  A  new  edifice  or  two 
may  be  put  up,  and  a  new  library  begun  in  the  course 
of  the  same  century ;  but  these  places  are  poor,  for  the 


254       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

most  part,  and  cannot  afford  to  pull  down  their  old 
barracks. 

These  sentimental  journeys  to  old  haunts  must  be 
made  alone.  The  story  of  them  must  be  told  suc 
cinctly.  It  is  like  the  opium  -  smoker's  showing  you 
the  pipe  from  which  he  has  just  inhaled  elysiau  bliss, 
empty  of  the  precious  extract  which  has  given  him  his 
dream. 

I  did  not  care  much  for  the  new  Academy  building 
on  my  right,  nor  for  the  new  library  building  on  my 
left.  But  for  these  it  was  surprising  to  see  how  little 
the  scene  I  remembered  in  my  boyhood  had  changed. 
The  Professors'  houses  looked  just  as  they  used  to,  and 
the  stage-coach  landed  its  passengers  at  the  Mansion 
House  as  of  old.  The  pale  brick  seminary  buildings 
were  behind  me  on  the  left,  looking  as  if  "  Hollis " 
and  "  Stoughton  "  had  been  transplanted  from  Cam 
bridge,  —  carried  there  in  the  night  by  orthodox  an 
gels,  perhaps,  like  the  Santa  Casa.  Away  to  my 
left  again,  but  abreast  of  me,  was  the  bleak,  bare  old 
Academy  building ;  and  in  front  of  me  stood  un 
changed  the  shallow  oblong  white  house  where  I  lived 
a  year  in  the  days  of  James  Monroe  and  of  John 
Quincy  Adams. 

The  ghost  of  a  boy  was  at  my  side  as  I  wandered 
among  the  places  he  knew  so  well.  I  went  to  the 
front  of  the  house.  There  was  the  great  rock  show 
ing  its  broad  back  in  the  front  yard.  /  used  to  crack 
nuts  on  that,  whispered  the  small  ghost.  I  looked  in 
at  the  upper  window  in  the  farther  part  of  the  house. 
/  looked  out  of  that  on  four  long  changing  seasons, 
said  the  ghost.  I  should  have  liked  to  explore  farther, 
but,  while  I  was  looking,  one  came  into  the  small  gar 
den,  or  what  used  to  be  the  garden,  in  front  of  the 


CINDERS   FROM   THE   ASHES.  255 

house,  and  I  desisted  from  my  investigation  and  went 
on  my  way.  The  apparition  that  put  me  and  my  lit 
tle  ghost  to  flight  had  a  dressing-gown  on  its  person 
and  a  gun  in  its  hand.  I  think  it  was  the  dressing- 
gown,  and  not  the  gun,  which  drove  me  off. 

And  now  here  is  the  shop,  or  store,  that  used  to  be 
Shipman's,  after  passing  what  I  think  used  to  be  Jon 
athan  Leavitt's  bookbindery,  and  here  is  the  back  road 
that  will  lead  me  round  by  the  old  Academy  building. 

Could  I  believe  my  senses  when  I  found  that  it  was 
turned  into  a  gymnasium,  and  heard  the  low  thunder 
of  ninepin  balls,  and  the  crash  of  tumbling  pins  from 
those  precincts  ?  The  little  ghost  said,  Never  !  It  can 
not  be.  But  it  was.  "  Have  they  a  billiard-room  in 
the  upper  story  ?  "  I  asked  myself.  "  Do  the  theological 
professors  take  a  hand  at  all-fours  or  poker  on  week 
days,  now  and  then,  and  read  the  secular  columns  of 
the  'Boston  Recorder'  on  Sundays?"  I  was  demoral 
ized  for  the  moment,  it  is  plain ;  but  now  that  I  have 
recovered  from  the  shock,  I  must  say  that  the  fact 
mentioned  seems  to  show  a  great  advance  in  common 
sense  from  the  notions  prevailing  in  my  time. 

I  sauntered,  —  we,  rather,  my  ghost  and  I,  —  until 
we  came  to  a  broken  field  where  there  was  quarrying 
and  digging  going  on,  —  our  old  base-ball  ground, 
hard  by  the  burial-place.  There  I  paused ;  and  if  any 
thoughtful  boy  who  loves  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  that 
another  has  sown  with  memories  of  the  time  when  he 
was  young  shall  follow  my  footsteps,  I  need  not  ask 
him  to  rest  here  awhile,  for  he  will  be  enchained  by 
the  noble  view  before  him.  Far  to  the  north  and 
west  the  mountains  of  New  Hampshire  lifted  their 
summits  in  a  long  encircling  ridge  of  pale  blue  waves. 
The  day  was  clear,  and  every  mound  and  peak  traced 


256       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

its  outline  with  perfect  definition  against  the  sky. 
This  was  a  sight  which  had  more  virtue  and  refresh 
ment  in  it  than  any  aspect  of  nature  that  I  had  looked 
upon,  I  am  afraid  I  must  say  for  years.  I  have  been 
by  the  seaside  now  and  then,  but  the  sea  is  constantly 
busy  with  its  own  affairs,  running  here  and  there,  lis 
tening  to  what  the  winds  have  to  say  and  getting  angry 
with  them,  always  indifferent,  often  insolent,  and 
ready  to  do  a  mischief  to  those  who  seek  its  compan 
ionship.  But  these  still,  serene,  unchanging  moun 
tains,  —  Monadnock,  Kearsarge,  —  what  memories 
that  name  recalls  !  —  and  the  others,  the  dateless  Pyr 
amids  of  New  England,  the  eternal  monuments  of  her 
ancient  race,  around  which  cluster  the  homes  of  so 
many  of  her  bravest  and  hardiest  children,  —  I  can 
never  look  at  them  without  feeling  that,  vast  and  re 
mote  and  awful  as  they  are,  there  is  a  kind  of  inward 
heat  and  muffled  throb  in  their  stony  cores,  that  brings 
them  into  a  vague  sort  of  sympathy  with  human  hearts. 
It  is  more  than  a  year  since  I  have  looked  on  those 
blue  mountains,  and  they  "  are  to  me  as  a  feeling  " 
now,  and  have  been  ever  since. 

I  had  only  to  pass  a  wall  and  I  was  in  the  burial- 
ground.  It  was  thinly  tenanted  as  I  remember  it,  but 
now  populous  with  the  silent  immigrants  of  more  than 
a  whole  generation.  There  lay  the  dead  I  had  left,  — 
the  two  or  three  students  of  the  Seminary;  the  son 
of  the  worthy  pair  in  whose  house  I  lived,  for  whom 
in  those  days  hearts  were  still  aching,  and  by  whose 
memory  the  house  still  seemed  haunted.  A  few  u )  >- 
right  stones  were  all  that  I  recollect.  But  now, 
around  them  were  the  monuments  of  many  of  the 
dead  whom  I  remembered  as  living.  I  doubt  if  there 
lias  been  a  more  faithful  reader  of  these  graven  stones 


CINDERS   FRCM   THE   ASHES.  257 

than  myself  for  many  a  long  day.  I  listened  to  more 
than  one  brief  sermon  from  preachers  whom  I  had 
often  heard  as  they  thundered  their  doctrines  down 
upon  me  from  the  throne-like  desk.  Now  they  spoke 
humbly  out  of  the  dust,  from  a  narrower  pulpit,  from 
an  older  text  than  any  they  ever  found  in  Cruden's 
Concordance,  but  there  was  an  eloquence  in  their 
voices  the  listening  chapel  had  never  known.  There 
were  stately  monuments  and  studied  inscriptions,  but 
none  so  beautiful,  none  so  touching,  as  that  which  hal 
lows  the  resting-place  of  one  of  the  children  of  the 
very  learned  Professor  Robinson  :  "  Is  it  well  with  the 
child  ?  And  she  answered,  It  is  well." 

While  I  was  musing  amidst  these  scenes  in  the  mood 
of  Hamlet,  two  old  men,  as  my  little  ghost  called 
them,  appeared  on  the  scene  to  answer  to  the  grave- 
digger  and  his  companion.  They  christened  a  moun 
tain  or  two  for  me,  "  Kearnsarge  "  among  the  rest,  and 
revived  some  old  recollections,  of  which  the  most  cu 
rious  was  "  Basil's  Cave."  The  story  was  recent, 
when  I  was  there,  of  one  Basil,  or  Bezill,  or  Buzzell, 
or  whatever  his  name  might  have  been,  a  member  of 
the  Academy,  fabulously  rich,  Orientally  extravagant, 
and  of  more  or  less  lawless  habits.  He  had  com 
manded  a  cave  to  be  secretly  dug,  and  furnished  it 
sumptuously,  and  there  with  his  companions  indulged 
in  revelries  such  as  the  daylight  of  that  consecrated 
locality  had  never  looked  upon.  How  much  truth 
there  was  in  it  all  I  will  not  pretend  to  say,  but  I  seem 
to  remember  stamping  over  every  rock  that  sounded 
hollow,  to  question  if  it  were  not  the  roof  of  what  was 
once  Basil's  Cave. 

The  sun  was  getting  far  past  the  meridian,  and  I 
sought  a  shelter  under  which  to  partake  of  the  hermit 


258       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

fare  I  had  brought  with  me.  Following  the  slope  of 
the  hill  northward  behind  the  cemetery,  I  found  a 
pleasant  clump  of  trees  grouped  about  some  rocks,  dis 
posed  so  as  to  give  a  seat,  a  table,  and  a  shade.  I  left 
my  benediction  on  this  pretty  little  natural  caravansera, 
and  a  brief  record  on  one  of  its  white  birches,  hoping 
to  visit  it  again  on  some  sweet  summer  or  autumn  day. 

Two  scenes  remained  to  look  upon,  —  the  Shawshine 
Kiver  and  the  Indian  Ridge.  The  streamlet  proved 
to  have  about  the  width  with  which  it  flowed  through 
my  memory.  The  young  men  and  the  boys  were  bath 
ing  in  its  shallow  current,  or  dressing  and  undressing 
upon  its  banks  as  in  the  days  of  old ;  the  same  river, 
only  the  water  changed  ;  "  The  same  boys,  only  the 
names  and  the  accidents  of  local  memory  different," 
I  whispered  to  my  little  ghost. 

The  Indian  Ridge  more  than  equalled  what  I  ex 
pected  of  it.  It  is  well  worth  a  long  ride  to  visit. 
The  lofty  wooded  bank  is  a  mile  and  a  half  in  extent, 
with  other  ridges  in  its  neighborhood,  in  general  run 
ning  nearly  parallel  with  it,  one  of  them  still  longer. 
These  singular  formations  are  supposed  to  have  been 
built  up  by  the  eddies  of  conflicting  currents  scatter 
ing  sand  and  gravel  and  stones  as  they  swept  over  the 
continent.  But  I  think  they  pleased  me  better  when 
I  was  taught  that  the  Indians  built  them  ;  and  while 
I  thank  Professor  Hitchcock,  I  sometimes  feel  as  if  I 
should  like  to  found  a  chair  to  teach  the  ignorance  of 
what  people  do  not  want  to  know. 

••  Two  tickets  to  Boston,"  I  said  to  the  man  at  the 
station. 

But  the  little  ghost  whispered,  "  When  you  leave 
this  place  you  leave  me  behind  you" 


CINDERS   FROM   THE   ASHES.  259 

"  One,  ticket  to  Boston,  if  you  please.  Good  by, 
little  ghost." 

I  believe  the  boy-shadow  still  lingers  around  the 
well-remembered  scenes  I  traversed  on  that  day,  and 
that,  whenever  I  revisit  them,  I  shall  find  him  again 
as  my  companion. 


vm. 

MECHANISM  IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORAIA* 

"Car  il  ne  faut  pas  se  meconnattre,  nous  sommes  automates  autant 
qu'esprit."  —  PASCAL,  Petuett,  chap.  xi.  §  4. 

[IT  is  fair  to  claim  for  this  Essay  the  license  which  belongs  to  all  spoken 
addresses.  To  hold  the  attention  of  an  audience  is  the  first  requisite  of 
every  such  composition  ;  and  for  this  a  more  highly  colured  rhetoric  is 
admissible  than  might  please  the  solitary  reader.  The  cheek  of  a  stage 
heroine  will  bear  a  touch  of  carmine  which  would  hardly  improve  the 
sober  comeliness  of  the  mother  of  a  family  at  her  fireside. 

So  too,  on  public  occasions,  a  wide  range  of  suggestive  inquiry,  meant 
to  stimulate  rather  than  satiate  the  interest  of  the  listeners,  may,  with 
some  reason,  be  preferred  to  that  more  complete  treatment  of  a  narrowly 
limited  subject  which  is  liable  to  prove  exhaustive  in  a  double  sense. 

In  the  numerous  notes  and  other  additions,  I  have  felt  the  right  to  use 
a  freedom  of  expression  which  some  might  think  out  of  place  before  the 
mixed  audience  of  a  literary  anniversary.  The  dissentient  listener  may 
find  himself  in  an  uneasy  position  hard  to  escape  from:  the  dissatisfied 
reader  has  an  easy  remedy.] 

As  the  midnight  train  rolls  into  an  intermediate  sta 
tion,  the  conductor's  voice  is  heard  announcing,  "  Cars 
stop  ten  minutes  for  refreshments."  The  passengers 
snatch  a  brief  "epast,  and  go  back,  refreshed,  we  will 
hope,  to  their  places.  But,  while  they  are  at  the  tables, 
one  may  be  seen  going  round  among  the  cars  with  a 
lantern  and  a  hammer,  intent  upon  a  graver  business. 
He  is  clinking  the  wheels  to  try  if  they  are  sound.  His 
task  is  a  humble  and  simple  one :  he  is  no  machinist, 
very  probably ;  but  he  can  cast  a  ray  of  light  from  his 

•  An  Address  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society 
of  Harvard  University,  June  29,  1870.  With  notes  and  after 
thoughts. 


MECHANISM   IN  THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         261 

lantern,  and  bring  out  the  ring  of  iron  with  a  tap  of  his 
hammer. 

Our  literary  train  is  stopping  for  a  very  brief  time 
at  its  annual  station ;  and  I  doubt  not  it  will  be  re 
freshed  by  my  youthful  colleague  before  it  moves  on. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  passengers  may  stand  much  in 
need  of  refreshment  before  I  have  done  with  them :  for 
I  am  the  one  with  the  hammer  and  the  lantern ;  and  I 
am  going  to  clink  some  of  the  wheels  of  this  intellectual 
machinery,  on  the  soundness  of  which  we  all  depend. 
The  slenderest  glimmer  I  can  lend,  the  lightest  blow 
I  can  strike,  may  at  least  call  the  attention  of  abler  and 
better-equipped  inspectors. 

I  ask  your  attention  to  some  considerations  on  the 
true  mechanical  relations  of  the  thinking  principle,  and 
to  a  few  hints  as  to  the  false  mechanical  relations  which 
have  intruded  themselves  into  the  sphere  of  moral  self- 
determination. 

I  call  that  part  of  mental  and  bodily  life  mechanical 
which  is  independent  of  our  volition.  The  beating 
of  our  hearts  and  the  secretions  of  our  internal  organs 
will  go  on,  without  and  in  spite  of  any  voluntary  effort 
of  ours,  as  long  as  we  live.  Respiration  is  partially 
under  our  control :  we  can  change  the  rate  and  special 
mode  of  breathing,  and  even  hold  our  breath  for  a  time ; 
but  the  most  determined  suicide  cannot  strangle  him 
self  without  the  aid  of  a  noose  or  other  contrivance 
which  shall  effect  what  his  mere  will  cannot  do.  The 
flow  of  thought  is,  like  breathing,  essentially  mechan 
ical  and  necessary,  but  incidentally  capable  of  being 
modified  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  by  conscious  effort. 
Our  natural  instincts  and  tastes  have  a  basis  which  can 
no  more  be  reached  by  the  will  than  the  sense  of  light 
and  darkness,  or  that  of  heat  and  cold  All  these  things 


262       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

we  feel  justified  in  referring  to  the  great  First  Cause : 
they  belong  to  the  "  laws  of  Nature,"  as  we  call  them, 
for  which  we  are  not  accountable. 

Whatever  may  be  our  opinions  as  to  the  relations 
between  "  mind  "  and  "  matter,"  our  observation  only 
extends  to  thought  and  emotion  as  connected  with  the 
living  body,  and,  according  to  the  general  verdict  of 
consciousness,  more  especially  with  certain  parts  of  the 
body ;  namely,  the  central  organs  of  the  nervous  sys 
tem.  The  bold  language  of  certain  speculative  men  of 
science  has  frightened  some  more  cautious  persons  away 
from  a  subject  as  much  belonging  to  natural  history  as 
the  study  of  any  other  function  in  connection  with  its 
special  organ.  If  Mr.  Huxley  maintains  that  his 
thoughts  and  ours  are  "  the  expression  of  molecular 
changes  in  that  matter  of  life  which  is  the  source  of  our 
other  vital  phenomena  ; "  •  if  the  Rev.  Prof.  Haughton 
suggests,  though  in  the  most  guarded  way,  that  "our 
successors  may  even  dare  to  speculate  on  the  changes 
that  converted  a  crust  of  bread,  or  a  bottle  of  wine,  in 
the  brain  of  Swift,  Molie're,  or  Shakespeare,  into  the 
conception  of  the  gentle  Glumdalclitch,  the  rascally 
Sganarelle,  or  the  immortal  Falstaff,"* — all  this  need 
not  frighten  us  from  studying  the  conditions  of  the 
thinking  organ  in  connection  with  thought,  just  as  we 
study  the  eye  in  its  relations  to  sight.  The  brain  is  an 
instrument,  necessary,  so  far  as  our  direct  observation 
extends,  to  thought.  The  "  materialist "  believes  it  to 
be  wound  up  by  the  ordinary  cosmic  forces,  and  to 
give  them  out  again  as  mental  products :  e  the  "  spirit- 

•  On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life.    New  Haven,  1870,  p.  261. 

•  Medicine  in  Modern  Times.     London,  1869,  p.  107. 

•  "  It  is  by  no  means  generally  admitted  that  the  brain  is  gov 
erned  by  the  mind.     On  the  contrary,  the  view  entertained  by  the 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         263 

ualist "  believes  in  a  conscious  entity,  not  interchange 
able  with  motive  force,  which  plays  upon  this  instru 
ment.  But  the  instrument  must  be  studied  by  the  one 
as  much  as  by  the  other :  the  piano  which  the  master 
touches  must  be  as  thoroughly  understood  as  the  musical 
box  or  clock  which  goes  of  itself  by  a  spring  or  weight. 
A  slight  congestion  or  softening  of  the  brain  shows  the 
least  materialistic  of  philosophers  that  he  must  recog 
nize  the  strict  dependence  of  mind  upon  its  organ  in  the 
only  condition  of  life  with  which  we  are  experimentally 
acquainted.  And  what  all  recognize  as  soon  as  disease 
forces  it  upon  their  attention,  all  thinkers  should  recog 
nize,  without  waiting  for  such  an  irresistible  demon 
stration.  They  should  see  that  the  study  of  the  organ 
of  thought,  microscopically,  chemically,  experimentally, 
on  the  lower  animals,  in  individuals  and  races,  in  health 
and  in  disease,  in  every  aspect  of  external  observation, 
as  well  as  by  internal  consciousness,  is  just  as  necessary 
as  if  mind  were  known  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  func 
tion  of  the  brain,  in  the  same  way  as  digestion  is  of  the 
stomach. 

These  explanations  are  simply  a  concession  to  the 
timidity  of  those  who  assume  that  they  who  study  the 
material  conditions  of  the  thinking  centre  necessarily 
confine  the  sphere  of  intelligence  to  the  changes  in 
those  conditions  ;  that  they  consider  these  changes 
constitute  thought ;  whereas  all  that  is  held  may  be, 
that  they  accompany  thought.  It  is  a  well-ascertained 
fact,  for  instance,  that  certain  sulphates  and  phos 
phates  are  separated  from  the  blood  that  goes  to  the 
brain  in  increased  quantity  after  severe  mental  labor. 

best  cerebral  physiologists  is,  that  the  mind  is  a  force  developed 
by  the  action  of  the  brain."  —  Journal  of  Psychological  Medicine^ 
July,  1870,  Editor's  (W.  A.  Hammond)  Note,  p.  535. 


264       PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

But  this  chemical  change  may  be  only  one  of  the  fac 
tors  of  intellectual  action.  So,  also,  it  may  be  true 
that  the  brain  is  inscribed  with  material  records  of 
thought ;  but  what  that  is  which  reads  any  such  rec 
ords,  remains  still  an  open  question.  I  have  meant 
to  leave  absolutely  untouched  the  endless  discussion 
as  to  the  distinctions  between  u  mind  "  and  "  mat 
ter,"  *  and  confine  myself  chiefly  to  some  results  of 
observation  in  the  sphere  of  thought,  and  some  sugges 
tions  as  to  the  mental  confusion  which  seems  to  me  a 
common  fact  in  the  sphere  of  morals. 

The  central  thinking  organ  is  made  up  of  a  vast 
number  of  little  starlike  bodies  embedded  in  fine  gran 
ular  matter,  connected  with  each  other  by  ray-like 
branches  in  the  form  of  pellucid  threads ;  the  same 
which,  wrapped  in  bundles,  become  nerves,  —  the  tel 
egraphic  cords  of  the  system.  The  brain  proper  is  a 
double  organ,  like  that  of  vision  ;  its  two  halves  being 
connected  by  a  strong  transverse  band,  which  unites 
them  like  the  Siamese  twins.  The  most  fastidious 
lover  of  knowledge  may  study  its  general  aspect  as  an 
after-dinner  amusement  upon  an  English  walnut, 
splitting  it  through  its  natural  suture,  and  examining 
either  half.  The  resemblance  is  a  curious  freak  of 
Nature's,  which  Cowley  has  followed  out,  in  his  ingen 
ious,  whimsical  way,  in  his  fifth  "  Book  of  Plants ; " 
thus  rendered  in  the  old  translation  from  his  original 
Latin  :  — 

u  Nor  can  this  head-like  nut,  sli.-ijM-d  like  the  hrain 
Within,  be  said  that  form  by  chance  to  gain  : 

•  Matter  itself  has  been  called  "  frozen  force,"  and,  as  Bosco- 
vich  hits  said,  is  only  known  to  us  as  localized  points  of  attrac- 
tion  and  repulsion. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         265 

For  membranes  soft  as  silk  her  kernel  bind, 
Whereof  the  inmost  is  of  tenderest  kind, 
Like  those  which  on  the  brain  of  man  we  find  ; 
All  which  are  in  a  seam-joined  shell  inclosed, 
Which  of  this  brain  the  skull  may  be  supposed." 

The  brain  must  be  fed,  or  it  cannot  work.  Four 
great  vessels  flood  every  part  of  it  with  hot  scarlet 
blood,  which  carries  at  once  fire  and  fuel  to  each  of 
its  atoms.  Stop  this  supply,  and  we  drop  senseless. 
Inhale  a  few  whiffs  of  ether,  and  we  cross  over  into 
the  unknown  world  of  death  with  a  return  ticket;  or 
we  prefer  chloroform,  and  perhaps  get  no  return 
ticket.  Infuse  a  few  drachms  of  another  fluid  into 
the  system,  and,  when  it  mounts  from  the  stomach  to 
the  brain,  the  pessimist  becomes  an  optimist ;  the  de 
spairing  wretch  finds  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth, 
and  laughs  and  weeps  by  turns  in  his  brief  ecstasy. 
But,  so  long  as  a  sound  brain  is  supplied  with  fresh 
blood,  it  perceives,  thinks.,  wills."  The  father  of  Eu 
gene  Sue,  the  novelist,  in  a  former  generation,  and  M. 
Pinel  in  this,  and  very  recently,  have  advocated  doing 
away  with  the  guillotine,  on  the  ground  that  the  man, 
or  the  nobler  section  of  him,  might  be  conscious  for  a 
time  after  the  axe  had  fallen.  We  need  not  believe 
it,  nor  the  story  of  Charlotte  Corday ;  still  less  that 
one  of  Sir  Everard  Digby,  that  when  the  executioner 
held  up  his  heart  to  the  gaze  of  the  multitude,  saying, 
"  This  is  the  heart  of  a  traitor !  "  the  severed  head  ex 
claimed,  "  Thou  liest !  "  These  stories  show,  however, 
the  sense  we  have  that  our  personality  is  seated  in  the 

•  That  is,  acts  as  the  immediate  instrument  through  which 
these  phenomena  are  manifested.  So  a  good  watch,  in  good  or 
der  and  wound  up,  tells  us  the  time  of  day.  The  making  and 
winding-up  forces  remain  to  be  accounted  for. 


266        PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

great  nervous  centre ;  and,  if  physiologists  could  ex 
periment  on  human  beings  as  some  of  them  have  done 
on  animals,  I  will  content  myself  with  hinting  that 
they  would  have  tales  to  relate  which  would  almost 
rival  the  legend  of  St.  Denis." 

An  abundant  supply  of  blood  to  a  part  implies  a 
great  activity  in  its  functions.  The  oxygen  of  the 
blood  keeps  the  brain  in  a  continual  state  of  sponta 
neous  combustion.  The  waste  of  the  organ  implies  as 
constant  a  repair.  "  Every  meal  is  a  rescue  from 
one  death,  and  lays  up  for  another ;  and  while  we 
think  a  thought,  we  die,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor.  It  is 
true  of  the  brain  as  of  other  organs  :  it  can  only  live 
by  dying.  We  must  all  be  born  again,  atom  by  atom, 
from  hour  to  hour,  or  perish  all  at  once  beyond  re 
pair.* 

Such  is  the  aspect,  seen  in  a  brief  glance,  of  the 

•  There  is  a  ghastly  literature  of  the  axe  and  block,  of  which 
the  stories  above  referred  to  are  specimens.     All  the  express  tri 
als  made  on  the  spot  after  executions  in  1803,  in  1853,  and  more 
recently  at  Beauvais,  have  afforded  only  negative   results,  as 
might  be  anticipated  from  the  fact  that  the  circulation  through 
the   brain  is  instantly  arrested  ;  and  Pere  Duchesne's  eternuer 
dans  U  MC  must  pass  as  a  frightful  pleasantry.     But  a  distin 
guished  physiological  experimenter  informed  me  that  the  sepa 
rated  head  of  a  dog,  on  being  injected  with  fresh  blood,  man 
ifested  signs  of  life  and  intelligence.  —  See  London  Quarterly 
Review,  vol.  Ixxiii.  p.  273  et  »eq.  ;  also  N.  Y.  Medical  Gazette  for 
April  9,  1870.     The  reader  who  would  compare  Dr.  Johnson's 
opinion  of  vivisection  with  Mr.  Huxley's  recent  defence  of  it  may 
consult  the  Idler,  No.  17. 

*  It  is  proper  to  say  here,  that  the  waste  occurring  in  an  organ 
is  by  no  means  necessarily  confined  to  its  stationary  elements. 
The  blood  itself  in  the  organ,  and  for  the  time  constituting  a  part 
of  it,  appears  to  furnish  the  larger  portion  of  the  fuel,  if  we  may 
call  it  so,  which  is  acted  on  by  its  own  oxygen.     This,  at  least,  is 
the  case  with  muscle,  and  is  probably  so  elsewhere. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         267 

great  nervous  centre.  It  is  constantly  receiving  mes 
sages  from  the  senses,  and  transmitting  orders  to  the 
different  organs  by  the  "  up  and  down  trains  "  of  the 
nervous  influence.  It  is  traversed  by  continuous  lines 
of  thought,  linked  together  in  sequences  which  are 
classified  under  the  name  of  "laws  of  association." 
The  movement  of  these  successions  of  thought  is  so 
far  a  result  of  mechanism  that,  though  we  may  modify 
them  by  an  exertion  of  will,  we  cannot  stop  them,  and 
remain  vacant  of  all  ideas. 

My  bucolic  friends  tell  me  that  our  horned  cattle 
always  keep  a  cud  in  their  mouths :  when  they  swallow 
one,  another  immediately  replaces  it.  If  the  creature 
happens  to  lose  its  cud,  it  must  have  an  artificial  one 
given  it,  or,  they  assure  me,  it  will  pine,  and  perhaps 
die.  Without  committing  myself  to  the  exactness  or 
the  interpretation  of  the  statement,  I  may  use  it  as  an 
illustration.  Just  in  the  same  way,  one  thought  re 
places  another ;  and  in  the  same  way  the  mental  cud 
is  sometimes  lost  while  one  is  talking,  and  he  must  ask 
his  companion  to  supply  its  place.  "  What  was  I  say 
ing  ?  "  we  ask ;  and  our  friend  furnishes  us  with  the 
lost  word  or  its  equivalent,  and  the  jaws  of  conversa 
tion  begin  grinding  again. 

The  brain  being  a  double  organ,  like  the  eye,  we 
naturally  ask  whether  we  can  think  with  one  side  of  it, 
as  we  can  see  with  one  eye  ;  whether  the  two  sides 
commonly  work  together;  whether  one  side  may  not 
be  stronger  than  the  other ;  whether  one  side  may  not 
be  healthy,  and  the  other  diseased;  and  what  conse 
quences  may  follow  from  these  various  conditions. 
This  is  the  subject  ingeniously  treated  by  Dr.  Wigan 
in  his  work  on  the  duality  of  the  mind.  He  maintains 
and  illustrates  by  striking  facts  the  independence  of 


268        PAGES    FKOM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

the  two  sides  ;  which,  so  far  as  headache  is  concerned, 
many  of  my  audieiice  must  know  from  their  own  ex 
perience.  The  left  half  of  the  brain,  which  controls 
the  right  half  of  the  body,  is,  he  believes,  the  strong 
est  in  all  but  left-handed  persons." 

The  resemblance  of  the  act  of  intelligence  to  that  of 
vision  is  remarkably  shown  in  the  terms  we  borrow 
from  one  to  describe  the  other.  We  see  a  truth ;  we 
throw  light  on  a  subject ;  we  elucidate  a  proposition  ; 
we  darken  counsel ;  we  are  blinded  by  prejudice ;  we 
take  a  narrow  view  of  things  ;  we  look  at  our  neighbor 
with  a  jaundiced  eye.  These  are  familiar  expres 
sions  ;  but  we  can  go  much  farther.  We  have  intel 
lectual  myopes,  near-sighted  specialists,  and  philoso 
phers  who  are  purblind  to  all  but  the  distant  abstract. 
We  have  judicial  intellects  as  nearly  achromatic  as 
the  organ  of  vision,  eyes  that  are  color-blind,  and  minds 
that  seem  hardly  to  have  the  sense  of  beauty.  The 
old  brain  thinks  the  world  grows  worse,  as  the  old 
retina  thinks  the  eyes  of  needles  and  the  fractions 
in  the  printed  sales  of  stocks  grow  smaller.  Just  as 
the  eye  seeks  to  refresh  itself  by  resting  on  neutral 
tints  after  looking  at  brilliant  colors,  the  mind  turns 
from  the  glare  of  intellectual  brilliancy  to  the  solace 
of  gentle  dulness ;  the  tranquillizing  green  of  the 
sweet  human  qualities,  which  do  not  make  us  shade 

"  Gratiolet  states  that  the  left  frontal  convolutions  are  devel 
oped  earlier  than  the  right.  Baillarger  attributes  right-handed 
ness  to  the  better  nutrition  of  the  left  hemisphere,  in  consequence 
of  the  disposition  of  the  arteries;  Hyrtl,  to  the  larger  current  of 
blood  to  the  right  arm,  etc.  —  See  an  essay  on  "  Right  and  Left 
Handedness,"  in  the  Journal  of  Psychological  Medicine  for  tTuly, 
1870,  by  Thomas  I) wight,  Jr.,  M.  D.;  also  "  Aphasia  and  the 
Physiology  of  Speech,"  by  T.  W.  Fisher,  in  the  Boston  Medico* 
and  Surgical  Journal  for  September  22,  ±870. 


MECHANISM   IN  THOUGHT    AND   MORALS.        269 

our  eyes  like  the  spangles  of  conversational  gymnasts 
and  figurantes. 

We  have  a  field  of  vision :  have  we  a  field  of 
thought?  Before  referring  to  some  matters  of  in 
dividual  experience,  I  would  avail  myself  of  Sir  John 
Herschel's  apology,  that  the  nature  of  the  subject 
renders  such  reference  inevitable,  as  it  is  one  that 
can  be  elucidated  only  by  the  individual's  putting  on 
record  his  own  personal  contribution  to  the  stock  of 
facts  accumulating. 

Our  conscious  mental  action,  aside  from  immediate 
impressions  on  the  senses,  is  mainly  pictured,  worded, 
or  modulated,  as  in  remembered  music  ;  all,  more  or 
less,  under  the  influence  of  the  will.  In  a  general 
way,  we  refer  the  seat  of  thinking  to  the  anterior  part 
of  the  head.  Pictured  thought  is  in  relation  with  the 
field  of  vision,  which  I  perceive  —  as  others  do,  no 
doubt  —  as  a  transverse  ellipse ;  its  vertical  to  its  hori 
zontal  diameter  about  as  one  to  three.  We  shut  our 
eyes  to  recall  a  visible  object :  we  see  visions  by  night. 
The  bright  ellipse  becomes  a  black  ground,  on  which 
ideal  images  show  more  distinctly  than  on  the  illumi 
nated  one.  The  form  of  the  mental  field  of  vision  is 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  we  can  follow  in  our  idea 
a  ship  sailing,  or  a  horse  running,  much  farther,  with 
out  a  sense  of  effort,  than  we  can  a  balloon  rising.  In 
seeing  persons,  this  field  of  mental  vision  seems  to  be 
a  little  in  front  of  the  eyes.  Dr.  Howe  kindly  answers 
a  letter  of  inquiry  as  follows  :  — 

"  Most  congenitally-blind  persons,  when  asked  with 
what  part  of  the  brain  they  think,  answer,  that  they 
are  not  conscious  of  having  any  brain. 

"  I  have  asked  several  of  the  most  thoughtful  and 
intelligent  among  our  pupils  to  designate,  as  nearly  as 


270       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

they  can,  the  seat  of  sensation  in  thought ;  and  they 
do  so  by  placing  the  hand  upon  the  anterior  and  up 
per  part  of  the  cranium." 

Worded  thought  is  attended  with  a  distinct  impulse 
towards  the  organs  of  speech  :  in  fact,  the  effort  often 
goes  so  far,  that  we  "  think  aloud,"  as  we  say.a  The 
seat  of  this  form  of  mental  action  seems  to  me  to  be 
beneath  that  of  pictured  thought ;  indeed,  to  follow 
certain  nerves  downward :  so  that,  as  we  say,  "  My 
heart  was  in  my  mouth,"  we  could  almost  say,  "  My 
brain  is  in  my  mouth."  A  particular  spot  has  been 
of  late  pointed  out  by  pathologists,  not  phrenologists, 
as  the  seat  of  the  faculty  of  speech.*  I  do  know  that 
our  sensations  ever  point  to  it.  Modulated  or  mu 
sical  consciousness  is  to  pictured  and  worded  thought 
as  algebra  is  to  geometry  and  arithmetic.  Music  has 

•  The  greater  number  of  readers  are  probably  in  the  habit  of 
articulating  the  words  mentally.      Beginners  read  syllable  by 
syllable. 

"  A  man  must  be  a  poor  beast,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  that  should 
read  no  more  in  quantity  than  he  could  utter  aloud."  There  are 
books  of  which  we  can  exhaust  a  page  of  its  meaning  at  a  glance  ; 
but  a  man  cannot  do  justice  to  a  poem  like  Gray's  Elegy  except 
by  the  distinct  mental  articulation  of  every  word.  Some  persons 
read  sentences  and  paragraphs  as  children  read  syllables,  taking 
their  sense  in  block,  as  it  were.  All  instructors  who  have  had 
occasion  to  consult  a  text-book  at  the  last  moment  before  enter 
ing  the  lecture-room  know  that  clairvoyant  state  well  enough  in 
which  a  page  prints  itself  on  their  perception  as  the  form  of 
types  stamped  itself  on  the  page. 

We  can  read  aloud,  or  mentally  articulate,  and  keep  up  a  dis 
tinct  train  of  pictured  thought,  —  not  so  easily  two  currents  of 
worded  thought  simultaneously  :  though  this  can  be  done  to 
some  extent  ;  as,  for  instance,  one  may  be  reading  aloud,  and  in 
ternally  articulating  some  well-known  passage. 

*  A  part  of  the  left  anterior  lobe.  —  See  Dr.  Fisher's  elaborate 
paper  before  referred  to. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.        271 

an  absolute  sensuous  significance  —  the  woodchuck 
which  used  to  listen  to  my  friend  playing  the  piano  I 
suppose  stopped  at  that ;  a  but  for  human  beings  it 
does  not  cause  a  mere  sensation,  nor  an  emotion,  nor  a 
definable  intellectual  state,  though  it  may  excite  many 
various  emotions  and  trains  of  worded  or  pictured 
thought.  But  words  cannot  truly  define  it :  we  might 
as  well  give  a  man  a  fiddle,  and  tell  him  to  play  the 
Ten  Commandments,  as  give  him  a  dictionary,  and  tell 
him  to  describe  the  music  of  "  Don  Giovanni." 

The  nerves  of  hearing  clasp  the  roots  of  the  brain 
as  a  creeping  vine  clings  to  the  bole  of  an  elm.  The 
primary  seat  of  musical  consciousness  seems  to  be  be 
hind  and  below  that  of  worded  thought ;  but  it  radi 
ates  in  all  directions,  calling  up  pictures  and  words, 
as  I  have  said,  in  endless  variety.  Indeed,  the  vari 
ous  mental  conditions  I  have  described  are  so  fre 
quently  combined  that  it  takes  some  trouble  to  deter 
mine  the  locality  of  each. 

The  seat  of  the  will  seems  to  vary  with  the  organ 
through  which  it  is  manifested ;  to  transport  itself  to 
different  parts  of  the  brain,  as  we  may  wish  to  recall 
a  picture,  a  phrase,  or  a  melody  ;  to  throw  its  force 
on  the  muscles  or  the  intellectual  processes.  Like  the 
general-in-chief ,  its  place  is  anywhere  in  the  field  of  ac 
tion.  It  is  the  least  like  an  instrument  of  any  of  our 
faculties  ;  the  farthest  removed  from  our  conceptions 
of  mechanism  and  matter,  as  we  commonly  define  them. 

This  is  my  parsimonious  contribution  to  our  knowl 
edge  of  the  relations  existing  between  mental  action 
and  space.  Others  may  have  had  a  different  expe- 

•  For  various  alleged  instances  of  the  power  of  music  over 
different  lower  animals,  —  the  cow,  the  stag,  mice,  serpents,  spi 
ders,  —  see  Dwight's  Journal  of  Music  for  October  26,  1861. 


272       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

rience ;  the  great  apostle  did  not  know  at  one  time 
whether  he  was  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body :  but 
my  system  of  phrenology  extends  little  beyond  this 
rudimentary  testimony  of  consciousness. 

When  it  comes  to  the  relation  of  mental  action  and 
/<'//".  we  can  say  with  Leibnitz,  "  Calculemus  /"  for 
here  we  can  reach  quantitative  results.  The  "  personal 
equation,"  or  difference  in  rapidity  of  recording  the 
same  occurrence,  has  been  recognized  in  astronomical 
records  since  the  time  of  Maskelyne,  the  royal  astron 
omer  ;  and  is  allowed  for  with  the  greatest  nicety,  as 
may  be  seen,  for  instance,  in  Dr.  Gould's  recent  re 
port  on  Transatlantic  Longitude.  More  recently,  the 
time  required  in  mental  processes  and  in  the  trans 
mission  of  sensation  and  the  motor  impulse  along 
nerves  has  been  carefully  studied  by  Helmholtz,  Fi- 
zeau,  Marey,  Donders,  and  others."  From  forty  to 
eighty,  a  hundred  or  more  feet  a  second  are  estimates 
of  different  observers :  so  that,  as  the  newspapers  have 
been  repeating,  it  would  take  a  whale  a  second,  more 
or  less,  to  feel  the  stroke  of  a  harpoon  in  his  tail.6 
Compare  this  with  the  velocity  of  galvanic  signals, 
which  Dr.  Gould  has  found  to  be  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen  thousand  miles  a  second  through  iron  wire  on 
poles,  and  about  sixty-seven  hundred  miles  a  second 

•  See  Annual  of  Scientific  Discovery  for  1851,  1858, 1863, 1866; 
Journal  of  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  2d  Series,  No.  1,  for  Novem 
ber,  1867;  Marey,  Du  Mouvement  dans  lea  Fonctions  de  la  Vie, 
p.  430  et  seq. 

*  Mr.  W.  F.  Barrett  calculates,  that  as  the  mind  requires  one 
tenth  of  a  second  to  form  a  conception  and  act  accordingly,  and 
as  a  rifle-bullet  would  require  no  more  than  one  thousandth  of  a 
second  to  pass  through  the  brain,  it  could  not  be  felt  (An.  Sc. 
IHscop.  1866-7,  p.  278).     When  Charles  XII.  was  struck  dead 
by  the  cannon-ball,  he  clapped  his  hand  on  his  sword.     Tliis,  how 
ever,  may  have  probably  been  an  unconscious  reflex  action. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         273 

through  the  submarine  cable.  The  brain,  according 
to  Fizeau,  takes  one  tenth  of  a  second  to  transmit  an 
order  to  the  muscles ;  and  the  muscles  take  one  hun 
dredth  of  a  second  in  getting  into  motion.  These 
results,  such  as  they  are,  have  been  arrived  at  by  ex- 
periments  on  single  individuals  with  a  very  delicate 
chrononietric  apparatus.  I  have  myself  instituted  a 
good  many  experiments  with  a  more  extensive  and 
expensive  machinery  than  I  think  has  ever  been  em 
ployed,  —  namely,  two  classes,  each  of  ten  intelligent 
students,  who  with  joined  hands  represented  a  nervous 
circle  of  about  sixty-six  feet :  so  that  a  hand-pressure 
transmitted  ten  times  round  the  circle  traversed  six 
hundred  and  sixty  feet,  besides  involving  one  hundred 
perceptions  and  volitions.  My  chronometer  was  a 
"  horse-timer,"  marking  quarter-seconds.  After  some 
practice,  my  second  class  gradually  reduced  the  time 
of  transmission  ten  times  round,  which,  like  that  of  the 
first  class,  had  stood  at  fourteen  and  fifteen  seconds, 
down  to  ten  seconds ;  that  is,  one  tenth  of  a  second  for 
the  passage  through  the  nerves  and  brain  of  each  in 
dividual,  —  less  than  the  least  time  I  have  ever  seen 
assigned  for  the  whole  operation ;  no  more  than  Fizeau 
has  assigned  to  the  action  of  the  brain  alone.  The 
mental  process  of  judgment  between  colors  (red,  white, 
and  green  counters),  between  rough  and  smooth  (com 
mon  paper  and  sand-paper),  between  smells  (camphor, 
cloves,  and  assafcetida),  took  about  three  and  a  half 
tenths  of  a  second  each ;  taste,  twice  or  three  times  as 
long,  on  account  of  the  time  required  to  reach  the  true 
sentient  portion  of  the  tongue.*  These  few  results  of 

•  Some  of  these  results  assign  a  longer  time  than  other  observ 
ers  have  found  to  be  required.  A  little  practice  would  materially 
shorten  the  time,  as  it  did  in  the  other  experiment. 


274       PAGES   FROM   AN  OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

my  numerous  experiments  show  the  rate  of  working  of 
the  different  parts  of  the  machinery  of  consciousness. 
Nothing  could  be  easier  than  to  calculate  the  whole 
number  of  perceptions  and  ideas  a  man  could  have  in 
the  course  of  a  life-time."  But  as  we  think  the  same 
thing  over  many  millions  of  times,  and  as  many  per 
sons  keep  up  their  social  relations  by  the  aid  of  a  vo 
cabulary  of  only  a  few  hundred  words,  or,  in  the  case 
of  some  very  fashionable  people,  a  few  scores  only,  a 
very  limited  amount  of  thinking  material  may  corre- 

•  "  The  sensible  points  of  the  retina,  according  to  Weber  and 
Smith,  measure  no  more  than  the  -gg1^  inch  in  diameter.  If, 
adopting  the  views  of  Mr.  Solly,  we  consider  the  convolutions  of 
the  brain  as  made  up  of  an  extensive  surface  of  cineritious  neur- 
ine,  we  may  estimate  the  number  of  ideas,  the  substrata  of  which 
may  be  contained  in  a  square  inch,  as  not  certainly  less  than  8,000; 
and,  as  there  must  be  an  immense  number  of  square  inches  of  sur 
face  in  the  gray  matter  extended  through  the  cerebro-spiual  axis 
of  man,  there  is  space  sufficient  for  millions."  —  On  the  Reflex 
Function  of  the  Brain,  by  T.  M.  Laycock,  M.  D.  Brit,  and  For. 
Med.  Review  for  January,  1845. 

Dr.  Hooke,  the  famous  English  mathematician  and  philosopher, 
made  a  calculation  of  the  number  of  separate  ideas  the  mind  is 
capable  of  entertaining,  which  he  estimated  as  3,155,760,000.  — 
Haller,  Elementa  Physiologies,  vol.  v.  p.  547.  The  nerve-cells  of 
the  brain  vary  in  size  from  roVff  *°  J$T  °*  an  "K"'1  ""  diameter 
(Marshall's  Physiology,  i.  77) ;  and  the  surface  of  the  convolu 
tions  is  reckoned  by  Baillarger  at  about  670  square  inches  (Ibid. 
p.  302) ;  which,  with  a  depth  of  one  fifth  of  an  inch,  would  give 
134  cubic  inches  of  cortical  substance,  and,  if  the  cells  average 
1-JifTS  of  an  inch,  would  allow  room  in  the  convolutions  for  134,- 
000,000,000  cells.  But  they  are  mingled  with  white  nerve-fibres 
and  granules.  While  these  calculations  illustrate  the  extreme 
complexity  of  the  brain-substance,  they  are  amusing  rather  than 
explanatory  of  mental  phenomena,  and  belong  to  the  province  of 
Science  moussetue,  to  use  the  lively  expression  of  a  French  acade 
mician  at  a  recent  session. 


MECHANISM   IN  THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         275 

spond  to  a  full  set  of  organs  of  sense,  and  a  good  de 
velopment  of  the  muscular  system." 

The  time-relation  of  the  sense  of  vision  was  illus 
trated  by  Newton  by  the  familiar  experiment  of  whirl 
ing  a  burning  brand,  which  appears  as  a  circle  of  fire. 
The  duration  of  associated  impressions  on  the  memory 
differs  vastly,  as  we  all  know,  in  different  individuals. 
But,  in  uttering  distinctly  a  series  of  unconnected  num 
bers  or  letters  before  a  succession  of  careful  listeners, 
I  have  been  surprised  to  find  how  generally  they  break 
down,  in  trying  to  repeat  them,  between  seven  and  ten 
figures  or  letters ;  though  here  and  there  an  individual 

•  The  use  of  slang,  or  cheap  generic  terms,  as  a  substitute  for 
differentiated  specific  expressions,  is  at  once  a  sign  and  a  cause 
of  mental  atrophy.  It  is  the  way  in  which  a  lazy  adult  shifts  the 
trouble  of  finding  any  exact  meaning  in  his  (or  her)  conversation 
on  the  other  party.  If  both  talkers  are  indolent,  all  their  talk 
lapses  into  the  vague  generalities  of  early  childhood,  with  the  dis 
advantage  of  a  vulgar  phraseology.  It  is  a  prevalent  social  vice 
of  the  time,  as  it  has  been  of  times  that  are  past. 

"  Thus  has  he  (and  many  more  of  the  same  breed,  that,  I  know, . 
the  drossy  age  dotes  on)  only  got  the  tune  of  the  time,  and  out 
ward  habit  of  encounter;  a  kind  of  yesty  collection,  which  carries 
them  through  and  through  the  most  fond  and  winnowed  opinions; 
and  do  but  blow  them  to  their  trial,  the  bubbles  are  out."  — 
Hamlet,  act  v.  sc.  2. 

Swift  says  (in  the  character  of  Simon  Wagstaff,  Esq.),  speak 
ing  of  "  witty  sentences,"  "  For,  as  long  as  my  memory  reaches,  I 
do  not  recollect  one  new  phrase  of  importance  to  have  been  added ; 
which  defect  in  us  moderns  I  take  to  have  been  occasioned  by  the 
introduction  of  cant- words  in  the  reign  of  King  CHARLES  the 
Second."  —  A  Complete  Collection  of  Genteel  and  Ingenious  Con 
versation,  etc.  Introduction. 

"  English  is  an  expressive  language,"  said  Mr.  Pinto,  "  but  not 
difficult  to  master.  Its  range  is  limited.  It  consists,  as  far  as  I 
can  observe,  of  four  words,  —  'nice,'  'jolly,'  'charming,'  and 
'  bore  ; '  and  some  grammarians  add  '  fond.' "  —  Lothair,  chap, 
xxviii. 


276        PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

may  be  depended  on  for  a  larger  number.  Pepys 
mentions  a  person  who  could  repeat  sixty  unconnected 
words,  forwards  or  backwards,  and  perform  other  won 
derful  feats  of  memory ;  but  this  was  a  prodigy."  I 
suspect  we  have  in  this  and  similar  trials  a  very  simple 
mental  dynamometer  which  may  yet  find  its  place  in 
education. 

Do  we  ever  think  without  knowing  that  we  are  think 
ing?  The  question  may  be  disguised  so  as  to  look  a 
little  less  paradoxical.  Are  there  any  mental  proc 
esses  of  which  we  are  unconscious  at  the  time,  but 
which  we  recognize  as  having  taken  place  by  finding 
certain  results  in  our  minds  ?  6 

That  there  are  such  unconscious  mental  actions  is 
laid  down  in  the  strongest  terms  by  Leibnitz,  whose 
doctrine  reverses  the  axiom  of  Descartes  into  sum, 
ergo  coffito.  The  existence  of  unconscious  thought  is 
maintained  by  him  in  terms  we  might  fairly  call  au 
dacious,  and  illustrated  by  some  of  the  most  striking 
facts  bearing  upon  it.  The  "  insensible  perceptions," 
he  says,  are  as  important  in  pneumatology  as  corpus 
cles  are  in  physics.  —  It  does  not  follow,  he  says  again, 
that,  because  we  do  not  perceive  thought,  it  does  not 
exist.  —  Something  goes  on  in  the  mind  which  answers 
to  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  all  the  internal  move 
ments  of  the  viscera.  —  In  one  word,  it  is  a  great  source 
of  error  to  believe  that  there  is  no  perception  in  the 
mind  but  those  of  which  it  is  conscious. 

•  This  is  nothing  to  the  story  told  by  Seneca  of  himself,  and 
still  more  of  a  friend  of  his,  one  Portias  Latro  (Mendax,  it  might 
be  suggested)  ;  or  to  that  other  relation  of  Muretus  about  a  cer 
tain  young  Corsican.  —  See  Rees's  Cyclopcedia,  art.  "  Memory," 
also  Haller's  Elem.  Phyx.  T.  548,  etc. 

*  "  Snch  a  process  of  reasoning  is  more  or  less  implicit,  and 
without  the  (fired  and  full  advertence  of  the  mind  exercising  it."  — 
J.  H.  Newman,  Exsay  in  Aid  of  a  Grammar  of  Auent. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.        277 

This  is  surely  a  sufficiently  explicit  and  peremptory 
statement  of  the  doctrine,  which,  under  the  names  of 
"  latent  consciousness,"  "  obscure  perceptions,"  "  the 
hidden  soul,"  "  unconscious  cerebration,"  "  reflex  ac 
tion  of  the  brain,"  has  been  of  late  years  emerging  into 
general  recognition  in  treatises  of  psychology  and  phys 
iology. 

His  allusion  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  the 
movements  of  the  viscera,  as  illustrating  his  paradox 
of  thinking  without  knowing  it,  shows  that  he  saw  the 
whole  analogy  of  the  mysterious  intellectual  movement 
with  that  series  of  reflex  actions  so  fully  described 
half  a  century  later  by  Hartley,  whose  observations,  ob 
scured  by  wrong  interpretation  of  the  cerebral  struc 
ture,  and  an  insufficient  theory  of  vibrations  which  he 
borrowed  from  Newton,  are  yet  a  remarkable  anticipa 
tion  of  many  of  the  ideas  of  modern  physiology,  for 
which  credit  has  been  given  so  liberally  to  Unzer  and 
Prochaska.  Unconscious  activity  is  the  rule  with  the 
actions  most  important  to  life.  The  lout  who  lies 
stretched  on  the  tavern-bench,  with  just  mental  activity 
enough  to  keep  his  pipe  from  going  out,  is  the  uncon 
scious  tenant  of  a  laboratory  where  such  combinations 
are  being  constantly  made  as  never  Wohler  or  Berthe- 
lot  could  put  together ;  where  such  fabrics  are  woven, 
such  colors  dyed,  such  problems  of  mechanism  solved, 
such  a  commerce  carried  on  with  the  elements  and 
forces  of  the  outer  universe,  that  the  industries  of  all 
the  factories  and  trading  establishments  in  the  world 
are  mere  indolence  and  awkwardness  and  unproduc 
tiveness  compared  to  the  miraculous  activities  of  which 
his  lazy  bulk  is  the  unheeding  centre.  All  these  un 
conscious  or  reflex  actions  take  place  by  a  mechanism 
never  more  simply  stated  than  in  the  words  of  Hart- 


278       PAGES   FROM    AN  OLD  VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

ley,  as  "  vibrations  which  ascend  up  the  sensory  nerves 
first,  and  then  are  detached  down  the  motory  nerves, 
which  communicate  with  these  by  some  common  trunk, 
plexus,  or  ganglion."  a  The  doctrine  of  Leibnitz,  that 
the  brain  may  sometimes  act  without  our  taking  cog 
nizance  of  it,  as  the  heart  commonly  does,  as  many  in 
ternal  organs  always  do,  seems  almost  to  belong  to  our 
time.  The  readers  of  Hamilton  and  Mill,  of  Aber- 
crombie,  Laycock,  and  Maudsley,  of  Sir  John  Her- 
sd  i.  -1.  of  Carpenter,  of  Lecky,  of  Dallas,  will  find  many 
variations  on  the  text  of  Leibnitz,  some  new  illustra 
tions,  a  new  classification  and  nomenclature  of  the 
facts  ;  but  the  root  of  the  matter  is  all  to  be  found  in 
his  writings. 

I  will  give  some  instances  of  work  done  in  the  un 
derground  workshop  of  thought,  —  some  of  them  fa 
miliar  to  the  readers  of  the  authors  just  mentioned. 

We  wish  to  remember  something  in  the  course  of 
conversation.  No  effort  of  the  will  can  reach  it ;  but 

"  He  goes  on  to  draw  the  distinction  between  "  automatic  mo 
tions  of  the  secondary  kind  "  and  those  which  were  originally 
automatic.  "The  fingers  of  young  children  bend  upon  almost 
every  impression  which  is  made  upon  the  palm  of  the  hand ;  thus 
performing  the  action  of  grasping  in  the  original  automatic  man 
ner."  ("  He  rastled  with  my  finger,  the  blank  little  etc. ! "  says  the 
hard-swearing  but  tender-hearted  "  Kentuck,"  speaking  of  the 
new-born  babe  whose  story  Mr.  Harte  has  told  so  touchingly  in 
"  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp.")  Hartley  traces  this  familiar 
nursery  experience  onwards,  until  the  original  automatic  action 
becomes  associated  with  sensations  and  ideas,  and  by  and  1>\  -nl>- 
ject  to  the  will;  and  shows  still  further  how  this  and  similar 
actions,  by  innumerable  repetitions,  reach  another  stage,  "  repass- 
ing  through  the  same  degrees  in  an  inverted  order,  till  they  be 
come  secondarily  automatic  on  many  occasions,  though  still  per 
fectly  voluntary  on  some ;  viz.,  whensoever  an  express  act  of  the 
will  is  exerted."  —  Obs.  on  Man,  Propositions  xix.,  xzL 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS.         279 

we  say,  "  Wait  a  minute,  and  it  will  come  to  me,"  and 
go  on  talking.  Presently,  perhaps  some  minutes  later, 
the  idea  we  are  in  search  of  comes  all  at  once  into  the 
mind,  delivered  like  a  prepaid  bundle,  laid  at  the  door 
of  consciousness  like  a  foundling  in  a  basket.  How 
it  came  there  we  know  not.  The  mind  must  have  been 
at  work  groping  and  feeling  for  it  in  the  dark :  it  can 
not  have  come  of  itself.  Yet,  all  the  while,  our  con 
sciousness,  so  far  as  we  are  conscious  of  our  conscious 
ness,  was  busy  with  other  thoughts. 

In  old  persons,  there  is  sometimes  a  long  interval  of 
obscure  mental  action  before  the  answer  to  a  ques 
tion  is  evolved.  I  remember  making  an  inquiry,  of 
an  ancient  man  whom  I  met  on  the  road  in  a  wagon 
with  his  daughter,  about  a  certain  old  burial-ground 
which  I  was  visiting.  He  seemed  to  listen  attentively ; 
but  I  got  no  answer.  "  Wait  half  a  minute  or  so," 
the  daughter  said,  "  and  he  will  tell  you."  And  sure 
enough,  after  a  little  time,  he  answered  me,  and  to  the 
point.  The  delay  here,  probably,  corresponded  to  what 
machinists  call  "  lost  time,"  or  "  back  lash,"  in  turning 
an  old  screw,  the  thread  of  which  is  worn.  But  with 
in  a  fortnight,  I  examined  a  young  man  for  his  degree, 
in  whom  I  noticed  a  certain  regular  interval,  and  a 
pretty  long  one,  between  every  question  and  its  answer. 
Yet  the  answer  was,  in  almost  every  instance,  correct, 
when  at  last  it  did  come.  It  was  an  idiosyncrasy,  I 
found,  which  his  previous  instructors  had  noticed.  I 
do  not  think  the  mind  knows  what  it  is  doing  in  the 
interval,  in  such  cases.  This  latent  period,  during 
which  the  brain  is  obscurely  at  work,  may.  perhaps, 
belong  to  mathematicians  more  than  others.  Swift 
said  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  that  if  one  were  to  ask  him 
a  question,  "  he  would  revolve  it  in  a  circle  in  his  brain, 


280       PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

round  and  round  and  round "  (the  narrator  here  de 
scribing  a  circle  on  his  own  forehead),  "  before  he 
could  produce  an  answer."  a 

I  have  often  spoken  of  the  same  trait  in  a  distin 
guished  friend  of  my  own,  remarkable  for  his  mathe 
matical  genius,  and  compared  his  sometimes  long-de 
ferred  answer  to  a  question,  with  half  a  dozen  others 
stratified  over  it,  to  the  thawing-out  of  the  frozen 
words  as  told  of  by  Baron  Munchausen  and  Rabelais, 
and  nobody  knows  how  many  others  before  them. 

I  was  told,  within  a  week,  of  a  business-man  in 
Boston,  who,  having  an  important  question  under  con 
sideration,  had  given  it  up  for  the  time  as  too  much 
for  him.  But  he  was  conscious  of  an  action  going  on 
in  his  brain  which  was  so  unusual  and  painful  as  to 
excite  his  apprehensions  that  he  was  threatened  with 
palsy,  or  something  of  that  sort.  After  some  hours 
of  this  uneasiness,  his  perplexity  was  all  at  once 
cleared  up  by  the  natural  solution  of  his  doubt  com 
ing  to  him,  —  worked  out,  as  he  believed,  in  that  ob 
scure  and  troubled  interval. 

The  cases  are  numerous  where  questions  have  been 
answered,  or  problems  solved,  in  dreams,  or  during 
nr.conscious  sleep.  Two  of  our  most  distinguished 
professors  in  this  institution  have  had  such  an  experi 
ence,  as  they  tell  me  ;  and  one  of  them  has  often  as 
sured  me  that  he  never  dreams.  Somnambulism  and 
double-consciousness  offer  another  series  of  illustra 
tions.  Many  of  my  audience  remember  a  murder 
case,  where  the  accused  was  successfully  defended,  on 
the  ground  of  somnambulism,  by  one  of  the  most  brill 
iant  of  American  lawyers.  In  the  year  1686  a 
brother  of  Lord  Culpeper  was  indicted  at  the  Old 
•  Note  to  A  Voyage  to  Laputa. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         281 

Bailey  for  shooting  one  of  the  guards,  and  acquitted 
on  the  same  ground  of  somnambulism  ;  that  is,  an 
unconscious,  and  therefore  irresponsible,  state  of  ac 
tivity." 

A  more  familiar  instance  of  unconscious  action  is 
to  be  found  in  what  we  call  "  absent "  persons,  — 
those  who,  while  wide  awake,  act  with  an  apparent 
purpose,  but  without  really  knowing  what  they  are 
doing ;  as  in  La  Bruy£re's  character,  who  threw  his 
glass  of  wine  into  the  backgammon-board,  and  swal 
lowed  the  dice. 

There  are  a  vast  number  of  movements  which  we 
perform  with  perfect  regularity  while  we  are  thinking 
of  something  quite  different,  —  "  automatic  actions  of 
the  secondary  kind,"  as  Hartley  calls  them,  and  of 
which  he  gives  various  examples.  The  old  woman 
knits ;  the  young  woman  stitches,  or  perhaps  plays  her 
piano,  and  yet  talks  away  as  if  nothing  but  her  tongue 
was  busy.  Two  lovers  stroll  along  side  by  side,  just 
born  into  the  rosy  morning  of  their  new  life,  prattling 
the  sweet  follies  worth  all  the  wisdom  that  years  will 
ever  bring  them.  How  much  do  they  think  about 
that  wonderful  problem  of  balanced  progression  which 
they  solve  anew  at  every  step  ? 

We  are  constantly  finding  results  of  unperceived 
mental  processes  in  our  consciousness.  Here  is  a 
striking  instance,  which  I  borrow  from  a  recent  num 
ber  of  an  English  journal.  It  relates  to  what  is  con 
sidered  the  most  interesting  period  of  incubation  in 
Sir  William  Rowan  Hamilton's  discovery  of  quater 
nions.  The  time  was  the  15th  of  October,  1843.  On 
that  day,  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  he  was  walk 
ing  from  his  observatory  to  Dublin  with  Lady  Ham- 
•  Dallas,  The  Gay  Science,  i.  324. 


282        PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIKE. 

ilton,  when,  on  reaching  Brougham  Bridge,  he  "  felt 
the  galvanic  circle  of  thought  close ;  and  the  sparks 
that  fell  from  it  were  the  fundamental  relations  be 
tween  i,  j,  k,"  just  as  he  used  them  ever  afterwards." 

Still  another  instance  of  the  spontaneous  evolution 
of  thought  we  may  find  in  the  experience  of  a  great 
poet.  When  Goethe  shut  his  eyes,  and  pictured  a 
flower  to  himself,  he  says  that  it  developed  itself  be 
fore  him  in  leaves  and  blossoms.*  The  result  of  the 
mental  process  appeared  as  pictured  thought,  but  the 
process  itself  was  automatic  and  imperceptible. 

There  are  thoughts  that  never  emerge  into  con 
sciousness,  which  yet  make  their  influence  felt  among 
the  perceptible  mental  currents,  just  as  the  unseen 
planets  sway  the  movements  of  those  which  are 
watched  and  mapped  by  the  astronomer.  Old  preju 
dices,  that  are  ashamed  to  confess  themselves,  nudge 
our  talking  thought  to  utter  their  magisterial  veto. 
In  hours  of  languor,  as  Mr.  Lecky  has  remarked,  the 
beliefs  and  fancies  of  obsolete  conditions  are  apt  to 
take  advantage  of  us.'  We  know  very  little  of  the 
contents  of  our  minds  until  some  sudden  jar  brings 
them  to  light,  as  an  earthquake  that  shakes  down  a 
miser's  house  brings  out  the  old  stockings  full  of  gold, 
and  all  the  hoards  that  have  hid  away  in  holes  and 
crannies. 

We  not  rarely  find  our  personality  doubled  in  our 
dreams,  and  do  battle  with  ourselves,  unconscious  that 
we  are  our  own  antagonists.  Dr.  Johnson  dreamed 
that  he  had  a  contest  of  wit  with  an  opponent,  and  got 

*  Nature,  February  7,  1870,  p.  407  ;  North  Bi  Uish  Review,  Sep 
tember,  1866,  p.  57. 

*  Muller's  Physiology  (Baly's  translation),  vol.  ii.  p.  1364. 

*  History  of  Rationalism,  ii.  96,  note. 


MECHANISM   IN  THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         283 

the  worst  of  it :  of  course,  he  furnished  the  wit  for 
both.  Tartini  heard  the  Devil  play  a  wonderful  so 
nata,  and  set  it  down  on  awaking.  Who  was  the 
Devil  but  Tartini  himself  ?  I  remember,  in  my  youth, 
reading  verses  in  a  dream,  written,  as  I  thought,  by  a 
rival  fledgling  of  the  Muse.  They  were  so  far  beyond 
my  powers,  that  I  despaired  of  equalling  them ;  yet  I 
must  have  made  them  unconsciously  as  I  read  them. 
Could  I  only  have  remembered  them  waking ! 

But  I  must  here  add  another  personal  experience, 
of  which  I  will  say  beforehand,  —  somewhat  as  honest 
Izaak  Walton  said  of  his  pike,  "  This  dish  of  meat  is 
too  good  for  any  but  anglers  or  very  honest  men,"  — 
this  story  is  good  only  for  philosophers  and  very  small 
children.  I  will  merely  hint  to  the  former  class  of 
thinkers,  that  its  moral  bears  on  two  points  :  first,  the 
value  of  our  self-estimate,  sleeping,  —  possibly,  also, 
waking ;  secondly,  the  significance  of  general  formulae 
when  looked  at  in  certain  exalted  mental  conditions. 

I  once  inhaled  a  pretty  full  dose  of  ether,  with  the 
determination  to  put  on  record,  at  the  earliest  moment 
of  regaining  consciousness,  the  thought  I  should  find 
uppermost  in  my  mind.  The  mighty  music  of  the  tri 
umphal  march  into  nothingness  reverberated  through 
my  brain,  and  filled  me  with  a  sense  of  infinite  possi 
bilities  which  made  me  an  archangel  for  the  moment. 
The  veil  of  eternity  was  lifted.  The  one  great  truth 
which  underlies  all  human  experience,  and  is  the  key 
to  all  the  mysteries  that  philosophy  has  sought  in  vain  to 
solve,  flashed  upon  me  in  a  sudden  revelation.  Hence 
forth  all  was  clear :  a  few  words  had  lifted  my  intelli 
gence  to  the  level  of  the  knowledge  of  the  cherubim. 
As  my  natural  condition  returned,  1  remembered  my 
resolution ;  and,  staggering  to  my  desk,  I  wrote,  in 


284       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

ill-shaped,  straggling  characters,  the  all-embracing 
truth  still  glimmering  in  my  consciousness.  The  words 
were  these  (children  may  smile  ;  the  wise  will  ponder)  : 
"  A  strong  smell  of  turpentine  prevails  throughout"  a 

My  digression  has  served  at  least  to  illustrate  the 
radical  change  which  a  slight  material  cause  may  pro 
duce  in  our  thoughts,  and  the  way  we  think  about  them. 
If  the  state  just  described  were  prolonged,  it  would  be 
called  insanity.6  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  are  many 
ill-organized,  perhaps  over-organized,  human  brains, 
to  which  the  common  air  is  what  the  vapor  of  ether 
was  to  mine :  it  is  madness  to  them  to  drink  in  this 
terrible  burning  oxygen  at  every  breath  ;  and  the  at 
mosphere  that  enfolds  them  is  like  the  flaming  shirt  of 
Nessus. 

The  more  we  examine  the  mechanism  of  thought, 
the  more  we  shall  see  that  the  automatic,  unconscious 

*  Sir  Humphry  Davy  has  related  an  experience,  which  I  had 
forgotten  when  I  recorded  my  own.     After  inhaling  nitrous-oxide 
gas,  he  says,  "  With  the  most  intense  belief  and  prophetic  man 
ner,  I  exclaimed  to  Dr.  Kingslake,  '  Nothing  exists  but  thoughts. 
The  universe  is  composed  of  impressions,  ideas,  pleasures,  and 
pains.'"—  Works,  London,  1839,  vol.  iii.  p.  290. 

*  We  are  often  insane  at  the  moment  of  awaking  from  sleep. 
" '  I  have  desired  Apronia  to  be  always  careful,  especially  about 
the  legs.'     Pray,  do  you  see  any  such  great  wit  in  that  sentence  ? 
I  must  freely  own  that  I  do  not.     Pray,  read  it  over  again,  and 
consider  it.     Why  —  ay  —  you  must  know  that  I  dreamed  it  just 
now,  and  waked  with  it  in  my  mouth.     Are  you  bit,  or  are  you 
not,  sirrahs  ?  "  —  Swift's  Journal  to  Stella,  letter  xv. 

Even  when  wide  awake,  so  keen  and  robust  a  mind  as  Swift's 
was  capable  of  a  strange  momentary  aberration  in  the  days  of  its 
full  vigor.  "  I  have  my  mouth  full  of  water,  and  was  going  to 
spit  it  out,  because  I  reasoned  with  myself,  '  How  could  I  write 
when  my  mouth  was  full  ? '  Have  you  not  done  things  like  that, 
—  reasoned  wrong  at  first  thinking  ?  "  — Ibid.,  letter  viii. 

All  of  us  must  have  had  similar  experiences. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS.         285 

action  of  the  mind  enters  largely  into  all  its  processes. 
Our  definite  ideas  are  stepping-stones;  how  we  get 
from  one  to  the  other,  we  do  not  know:  something 
carries  us  ;  we  do  not  take  the  step.  A  creating  and 
informing  spirit  which  is  with  us,  and  not  of  us,  is  rec 
ognized  everywhere  in  real  and  in  storied  life.  It  is  the 
Zeus  that  kindled  the  rage  of  Achilles  ;  it  is  the  Muse 
of  Homer ;  it  is  the  Dairnon  of  Socrates ;  it  is  the 
inspiration  of  the  seer ;  it  is  the  mocking  devil  that 
whispers  to  Margaret  as  she  kneels  at  the  altar  ;  and 
the  hobgoblin  that  cried,  "  Sell  him,  sell  him !  "  in  the 
ear  of  John  Bunyan :  it  shaped  the  forms  that  filled 
the  soul  of  Michael  Angelo  when  he  saw  the  figure  of 
the  great  Lawgiver  in  the  yet  unhewn  marble,  and  the 
dome  of  the  world's  yet  unbuilt  basilica  against  the 
blank  horizon ;  it  comes  to  the  least  of  us,  as  a  voice 
that  will  be  heard ;  it  tells  us  what  we  must  believe ; 
it  frames  our  sentences ;  it  lends  a  sudden  gleam  of 
sense  or  eloquence  to  the  dullest  of  us  all,  so  that,  like 
Katterfelto  with  his  hair  on  end,  we  wonder  at  our 
selves,  or  rather  not  at  ourselves,  but  at  this  divine 
visitor,  who  chooses  our  brain  as  his  dwelling-place, 
and  invests  our  naked  thought  with  the  purple  of  the 
kings  of  speech  or  song. 

After  all,  the  mystery  of  unconscious  mental  action 
is  exemplified,  as  I  have  said,  in  every  act  of  mental 
association.  What  happens  when  one  idea  brings  up 
another  ?  Some  internal  movement,  of  which  we  are 
wholly  unconscious,  and  which  we  only  know  by  its 
effect.  What  is  this  action,  which  in  Dame  Quickly 
agglutinates  contiguous  circumstances  by  their  sur 
faces  ;  in  men  of  wit  and  fancy,  connects  remote  ideas 
by  partial  resemblances ;  in  men  of  imagination,  by 
the  vital  identity  which  underlies  phenomenal  diver- 


286       PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

sity ;  in  the  man  of  science,  groups  the  objects  of 
thought  in  sequences  of  maximum  resemblance  ?  Not 
one  of  them  can  answer.  There  is  a  Delphi  and  a 
Pythoness  in  every  human  breast. 

The  poet  sits  down  to  his  desk  with  an  odd  conceit 
in  his  brain;  and  presently  his  eyes  fill  with  tears, 
his  thought  slides  into  the  minor  key,  and  his  heart  is 
full  of  sad  and  plaintive  melodies.  Or  he  goes  to  his 
work,  saying,  "  To-night  I  would  have  tears ;  "  and, 
before  he  rises  from  his  table  he  has  written  a  bur 
lesque,  such  as  he  might  think  fit  to  send  to  one  of  the 
comic  papers,  if  these  were  not  so  commonly  ceme 
teries  of  hilarity  interspersed  with  cenotaphs  of  wit 
and  humor.  These  strange  hysterics  of  the  intelli 
gence,  which  make  us  pass  from  weeping  to  laughter, 
and  from  laughter  back  again  to  weeping,  must  be 
familiar  to  every  impressible  nature ;  and  all  is  as  au 
tomatic,  involuntary,  as  entirely  self-evolved  by  a  hid 
den  organic  process,  as  are  the  changing  moods  of  the 
laughing  and  crying  woman.  The  poet  always  rec 
ognizes  a  dictation  ab  extra  ;  and  we  hardly  think  it 
a  figure  of  speech  when  we  talk  of  his  inspiration.  , 

The  mental  attitude  of  the  poet  while  writing,  if  I 
may  venture  to  define  it,  is  that  of  the  "  nun  breath 
less  with  adoration."  Mental  stillness  is  the  first  con 
dition  of  the  listening  state  ;  and  I  think  my  friends 
the  poets  will  recognize  that  the  sense  of  effort,  which 
is  often  felt,  accompanies  the  mental  spasm  by  which 
the  mind  is  maintained  in  a  state  at  once  passive  to 
the  influx  from  without,  and  active  in  seizing  only 
that  which  will  serve  its  purpose."  It  is  not  strange 

•  Burns  tells  us  how  he  composed  verses  for  a  given  tune  :  — 

"  My  way  is,  I  consider  the  poetic  sentiment  correspondent  to 

my  idea  of  the  musical  expression  ;  then  choose  my  theme  ;  be- 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         287 

that  remembered  ideas  should  often  take  advantage  of 
the  crowd  of  thoughts,  and  smuggle  themselves  in  as 
original.  Honest  thinkers  are  always  stealing  uncon 
sciously  from  each  other.  Our  minds  are  full  of  waifs 
and  estrays  which  we  think  are  our  own.  Innocent 
plagiarism  turns  up  everywhere.  Our  best  musical 
critic  tells  me  that  a  few  notes  of  the  air  of  "  Shoo 
Fly"  are  borrowed  from  a  movement  in  one  of  the 
magnificent  harmonies  of  Beethoven." 

gin  one  stanza.  When  that  is  composed,  which  is  generally  the 
most  difficult  part  of  the  business,  I  walk  out,  sit  down  now  and 
then,  look  out  for  objects  in  Nature  that  are  in  unison  or  harmony 
with  the  cogitations  of  my  fancy,  and  workings  of  my  bosom  ; 
humming  every  now  and  then  the  air  with  the  verses  I  have 
framed.  When  I  feel  my  Muse  beginning  to  jade,  I  retire  to 
the  solitary  fireside  of  my  study,  and  there  commit  my  effusions 
to  paper  ;  swinging  at  intervals  on  the  hind-legs  of  my  elbow- 
chair,  by  way  of  calling  forth  my  own  critical  strictures,  as  my 
pen  goes  on."  —  Letters  to  G.  Thomson,  No.  xxxvii. 

0  One  or  two  instances  where  the  same  idea  is  found  in  differ 
ent  authors  may  be  worth  mentioning  in  illustration  of  the  re 
mark  just  made.  We  are  familiar  with  the  saying,  that  the 
latest  days  are  the  old  age  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Lewes  finds  this  in  Lord  Bacon's  writings,  in  Roger  Ba 
con's  also,  and  traces  it  back  as  far  as  Seneca.  I  find  it  in  Pascal 
(Preface  sur  le  Traite  du  Vide)  ;  and  Hobbes  says,  "  If  we  will 
reverence  the  ages,  the  present  is  the  oldest."  So,  too,  Tenny 
son  :  — 

"  For  we  are  ancients  of  the  earth, 
And  in  the  morning  of  the  times." 

The  Day-Dream:  V Envoi,  r 

Here  are  several  forms  of  another  familiar  thought  :  — 
"  And  what  if  all  of  animated  nature 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 
That  tremble  into  thought  as  o'er  them  sweeps, 
Plastic  and  vast,  one  intellectual  breeze, 
At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all  V  " 

Coleridge,  The  jEolian  Harp, 

"Are  we  a  piece  of  machinery,  which,  like  the  .Koliaii  harp, 


288       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

And  so  the  orator,  —  I  do  not  mean  the  poor  slave 
of  a  manuscript,  who  takes  his  thought  chilled  and 
stiffened  from  its  mould,  but  the  impassioned  speaker 
who  pours  it  forth  as  it  flows  coruscating  from  the  fur 
nace,  —  the  orator  only  becomes  our  master  at  the 
moment  when  he  himself  is  surprised,  captured,  taken 
possession  of,  by  a  sudden  rush  of  fresh  inspiration. 
How  well  we  know  the  flash  of  the  eye,  the  thrill  of 
the  voice,  which  are  the  signature  and  symbol  of  nas 
cent  thought,  —  thought  just  emerging  into  conscious 
ness,  in  which  condition,  as  is  the  case  with  the  chem 
ist's  elements,  it  has  a  combining  force  at  other  times 
wholly  unknown  ! 

passive,  takes  the  impression  of  the  passing  accident  ?  "  —  Burns 
to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  letter  148. 

••  Un  seul  esprit,  qui  est  universel  et  qui  anime  tout  1'univers, 
—  comme  un  mduie  souffle  de  vent  fait  sonner  differemment  di 
vers  tuyaux  d'orgue."  —  Leibnitz,  Considerations  sur  la  Doctrine 
tfun  Esprit  Universel. 

Literature  is  full  of  such  coincidences,  which  some  love  to  be 
lieve  plagiarisms.  There  are  thoughts  always  abroad  in  the  air, 
which  it  takes  more  wit  to  avoid  than  to  hit  upon,  as  the  solitary 
"  Address  without  a  Pho3nix  "  may  remind  those  critical  ant-eat 
ers  whose  aggressive  feature  is  drawn  to  too  fine  a  point. 

Old  stories  reproduce  themselves  in  a  singular  way,  —  not  only 
in  such  authors  as  Mr.  Joseph  Miller,  but  among  those  whom  we 
cannot  for  a  moment  suspect  of  conscious  misappropriation. 
Here  is  an  instance  forced  upon  my  attention.  In  the  preface 
to  The  Guardian  Angel,  I  quoted  a  story  from  Sprague's  "An 
nals  of  the  American  Pnlpit,"  which  is  there  spoken  of  as  be 
ing  told,  by  Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger,  of  a  brutal  fellow 
in  New  Haven.  Some  one  found  a  similar  story  in  a  German 
novel,  and  mentioned  the  coincidence.  The  true  original,  to 
which  I  was  directed  by  Dr.  Elam's  book,  A  Physician's  Prob 
lems,  is  to  be  found  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  seventh  book 
of  Aristotle's  Ethics.  My  Latin  version  renders  it  thus  :  "  Et 
qui  a  filio  trahebatur  trahendi  finem  jubebat  ad  foreis,  uain  a  se 
quoque  ad  hunc  locum  patrem  suum  tractum  esse." 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         289 

But  we  are  all  more  or  less  improvisators.  We  all 
have  a  double,  who  is  wiser  and  better  than  we  are, 
and  who  puts  thoughts  into  our  heads,  and  words  into 
our  mouths.  Do  we  not  all  commune  with  our  own 
hearts  upon  our  beds  ?  Do  we  not  all  divide  our 
selves,  and  go  to  buffets  on  questions  of  right  or 
wrong,  of  wisdom  or  folly  ?  Who  or  what  is  it  that 
resolves  the  stately  parliament  of  the  day,  with  all  its 
forms  and  conventionalities  and  pretences,  and  the 
great  Me  presiding,  into  the  committee  of  the  whole, 
with  Conscience  in  the  chair,  that  holds  its  solemn 
session  through  the  watches  of  the  night  ? 

Persons  who  talk  most  do  not  always  think  most. 
I  question  whether  persons  who  think  most  —  that  is, 
have  most  conscious  thought  pass  through  their  minds 
—  necessarily  do  most  mental  work.  The  tree  you 
are  sticking  in  "  will  be  growing  when  you  are 
sleeping."  So  with  every  new  idea  that  is  planted  in 
a  real  thinker's  mind :  it  will  be  growing  when  he  is 
least  conscious  of  it.  An  idea  in  the  brain  is  not  a 
legend  carved  on  a  marble  slab :  it  is  an  impression 
made  on  a  living  tissue,  which  is  the  seat  of  active 
nutritive  processes.  Shall  the  initials  I  carved  in 
bark  increase  from  year  to  year  with  the  tree  ?  and 
shall  not  my  recorded  thought  develop  into  new  forms 
and  relations  with  my  growing  brain  ?  Mr.  Webster 
told  one  of  our  greatest  scholars  that  he  had  to  change 
the  size  of  his  hat  every  few  years.  His  head  grow 
larger  as  his  intellect  expanded.  Illustrations  of  this 
same  fact  were  shown  me  many  years  ago  by  Mr.  De- 
ville,  the  famous  phrenologist,  in  London.  But  or 
ganic  mental  changes  may  take  place  in  shorter  spaces 
of  time.  A  single  night  of  sleep  has  often  brought  a 
sober  second-thought,  which  was  a  surprise  to  the 


290       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

hasty  conclusion  of  the  day  before.  Lord  Polkom- 
met's  description  of  the  way  he  prepared  himself  for 
a  judicial  decision  is  in  point,  except  for  the  alcoholic 
fertilizer  he  employed  in  planting  his  ideas :  "  Ye  see, 
I  first  read  a'  the  pleadings ;  and  then,  after  letting 
them  wamble  in  my  wame  wi'  the  toddy  two  or  three 
days,  I  gie  my  ain  interlocutor."  tf 

The  counterpart  of  this  slow  process  is  found  in  the 
ready,  spontaneous,  automatic,  self-sustaining,  contin 
uous  flow  of  thought,  well  illustrated  in  a  certain  form 
of  dialogue,  which  seems  to  be  in  a  measure  peculiar 
to  the  female  sex.  The  sternest  of  our  sisters  will,  I 
hope,  forgive  me  for  telling  the  way  in  which  this  cu 
rious  fact  was  forced  upon  my  notice. 

I  was  passing  through  a  somewhat  obscure  street  at 
the  west  end  of  our  city  a  year  or  two  since,  when  my 
attention  was  attracted  to  a  narrow  court  by  a  sound 
of  voices  and  a  small  crowd  of  listeners.  From  two 
open  windows  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  court  pro 
jected  the  heads,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
persons,  of  two  of  the  sex  in  question,  —  natives,  both 
of  them,  apparently,  of  the  green  isle  famous  for 
shamrocks  and  shillalahs.  They  were  engaged  in  ar 
gument,  if  that  is  argument  in  which  each  of  the  two 
parties  develops  his  proposition  without  the  least  re 
gard  to  what  the  other  is  at  the  same  time  saying. 
The  question  involved  was  the  personal,  social,  moral, 
and,  in  short,  total  standing  and  merit  of  the  two  con 
troversialists  and  their  respective  families.  But  the 
strange  phenomenon  was  this  :  The  two  women,  as  if 
by  preconcerted  agreement,  like  two  instruments  play 
ing  a  tune  in  unison,  were  pouring  forth  simultane- 

•  Dean  Ramsay's  Reminiscences  of  Scottish  Life  and  Charac 
ter,  p.  126. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS.         291 

ously  a  calm,  steady,  smooth-flowing  stream  of  mutual 
undervaluation,  to  apply  a  mild  phrase  to  it ;  never 
stopping  for  punctuation,  and  barely  giving  themselves 
time  to  get  breath  between  its  long-drawn  clauses. 
The  dialogue  included  every  conceivable  taunt  which 
might  rouse  the  fury  of  a  sensitive  mother  of  a  fam 
ily,  whose  allegiance  to  her  lord,  and  pride  in  her  off 
spring,  were  points  which  it  displeased  her  to  have 
lightly  handled.  I  stood  and  listened  like  the  quiet 
groups  in  the  more  immediate  neighborhood.  I  looked 
for  some  explosion  of  violence,  for  a  screaming  volley 
of  oaths,  for  an  hysteric  burst  of  tears,  perhaps  for  a 
missile  of  more  questionable  character  than  an  epithet 
aimed  at  the  head  and  shoulders  projecting  opposite. 
"  At  any  rate,"  I  thought,  "  their  tongues  will  soon 
run  down ;  for  it  is  not  in  human  nature  that  such  a 
flow  of  scalding  rhetoric  can  be  kept  up  very  long." 
But  I  stood  waiting  until  I  was  tired  ;  and,  with  labi- 
tur  et  labetur  on  my  lips,  I  left  them  pursuing  the 
even  tenor,  or  treble,  of  their  way  in  a  duet  which 
seemed  as  if  it  might  go  on  until  nightfall. 

I  came  away  thinking  I  had  discovered  a  new  na 
tional  custom,  as  peculiar,  and  probably  as  limited,  as 
the  Corsican  vendetta.  But  I  have  since  found  that 
the  same  scolding  duets  take  place  between  the  women 
in  an  African  kraal.  A  couple  of  them  will  thrust 
their  bodies  half  out  of  their  huts,  and  exhaust  the 
vocabulary  of  the  native  Worcester  and  Webster  to 
each  other's  detriment,  while  the  bystanders  listen  with 
a  sympathy  which  often  leads  to  a  general  disturbance.* 
And  I  find  that  Homer  was  before  us  all  in  noticing 
this  curious  logomachy  of  the  unwarlike  sex.  JEneaa 

•  Uncivilized  Races  of  Men,  by  Rev.  J.  G.  Wood,  vol.  L  p 
213. 


292        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

says  to  Achilles  after  an  immensely  long-winded  dis 
course,  which  Creiisa  could  hardly  have  outdone,  — 

••  But  why  in  wordy  and  contentious  strife 
Need  we  each  other  scold,  as  women  use, 
Who,  with  some  heart-consuming  anger  wroth, 
Stand  in  the  street,  and  call  each  other  names, 
Some  true,  some  false;  for  so  their  rage  commands?  "• 

I  confess  that  the  recollection  of  the  two  women,  drift 
ing  upon  their  vocabularies  as  on  a  shoreless  ocean, 
filled  me  at  first  with  apprehension  as  to  the  possible 
future  of  our  legislative  assemblies.  But,  in  view  of 
what  our  own  sex  accomplishes  in  the  line  of  mutual 
vituperation,  perhaps  the  feminine  arrangement,  by 
which  the  two  save  time  by  speaking  at  once,  and  it  is 
alike  impossible  for  either  to  hear  the  other,  and  for 
the  audience  to  hear  them  both,  might  be  considered 
an  improvement. 

The  automatic  flow  of  thought  is  often  singularly 
favored  by  the  fact  of  listening  to  a  weak,  continuous 
discourse,  with  just  enough  ideas  in  it  to  keep  the 
mind  busy  on  something  else.  The  induced  current  of 
thought  is  often  rapid  and  brilliant  in  the  inverse  ratio 
of  the  force  of  the  inducing  current. 

The  vast  amount  of  blood  sent  to  the  brain  implies 
a  corresponding  amount  of  material  activity  in  the  or 
gan.  In  point  of  fact,  numerous  experiments  have 
shown  (and  I  may  refer  particularly  to  those  of  our 
own  countrymen,  —  Professors  Flint,  Hammond,  and 
Lombard)  that  the  brain  is  the  seat  of  constant  nu- 

•  Iliad,  xx.  251-255.     And  Tennyson  speaks  of 

"  Those  detestable 

That  let  the  bantling  scald  at  home,  and  brawl 
Their  rights  or  wrongs  like  pot-herbs  in  the  street" 

The  Princeu,  323. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS. 

tritive  changes,  which  are  greatly  increased  by  mental 
exertion. 

The  mechanical  coefficient  of  mental  action  may 
be  therefore  considered  a  molecular  movement  in  the 
nervous  centres,  attended  with  waste  of  material  con 
veyed  thither  in  the  form  of  blood,  —  not  a  mere 
tremor  like  the  quiver  of  a  bell,  but  a  process  more 
like  combustion ;  the  blood  carrying  off  the  oxidated 
particles,  and  bringing  in  fresh  matter  to  take  their 
place. 

This  part  of  the  complex  process  must,  of  course, 
enter  into  the  category  of  the  correlated  forces.  The 
brain  must  be  fed  in  order  to  work ;  and  according  to 
the  amount  of  waste  of  material  will  be  that  of  the 
food  required  to  repair  losses.  So  much  logic,  so 
much  beef ;  so  much  poetry,  so  much  pudding :  and, 
as  we  all  know  that  all  growing  things  are  but  sponges 
soaked  full  of  old  sunshine,  Apollo  becomes  as  impor 
tant  in  the  world  of  letters  as  ever." 

But  the  intellectual  product  does  not  belong  to  the 
category  of  force  at  all,  as  defined  by  physicists.  It 
does  not  answer  their  definition  as  "  that  which  is  ex 
pended  in  producing  or  resisting  motion."  It  is  not 
reconvertible  into  other  forms  of  force.  One  cannot 
lift  a  weight  with  a  logical  demonstration,  or  make 
a  tea-kettle  boil  by  writing  an  ode  to  it.  A  given 
amount  of  molecular  action  in  two  brains  represents  a 
certain  equivalent  of  food,  but  by  no  means  an  equiva 
lent  of  intellectual  product.  Bavius  and  Maevius  were 
very  probably  as  good  feeders  as  Virgil  and  Horace, 
and  wasted  as  much  brain-tissue  in  producing  their 

•  It  is  curious  to  compare  the  Laputan  idea  of  extracting  sun 
beams  from  cucumbers  with  George  Stepheusou's  famous  saying 
about  coal. 


294       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD  VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

carmina  as  the  two  great  masters  wasted  in  producing 
theirs.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  present  Lau 
reate  of  England  consumed  more  oxidable  material  in 
the  shape  of  nourishment  for  every  page  of  "  Maud  " 
or  of  "  In  Memoriam "  than  his  predecessor  Nahum 
Tate,  whose  masterpiece  gets  no  better  eulogy  than 
that  it  is  "  the  least  miserable  of  his  productions,"  in 
eliminating  an  equal  amount  of  verse.0 

As  mental  labor,  in  distinction  from  the  passive  flow 
of  thought,  implies  an  exercise  of  will,  and  as  mental 
labor  is  shown  to  be  attended  by  an  increased  waste, 
the  presumption  is  that  this  waste  is  in  some  degree 
referable  to  the  material  requirements  of  the  act  of  vo 
lition.  We  see  why  the  latter  should  be  attended  by 
a  sense  of  effort,  and  followed  by  a  feeling  of  fatigue. 

A  question  is  suggested  by  the  definition  of  the  phys 
icists.  What  is  that  which  changes  the  form  of  force? 
Electricity  leaves  what  we  call  magnetism  in  iron, 
after  passing  through  it :  what  name  shall  we  give  to 
that  virtue  in  iron  which  causes  the  force  we  know  as 
electricity  thus  to  manifest  itself  by  a  precipitate,  so  to 
speak,  of  new  properties  ?  Why  may  we  not  speak  of 
a  visferrca  as  causing  the  change  in  consequence  of 
which  a  bar  through  which  an  electrical  current  has 
flowed  becomes  capable  of  attracting  iron  and  of  mag- 

•  "  Sur  uu  me  me  papier,  avec  la  racme  plume  et  la  mi":  mr  en- 
cre,  en  remuant  tant  soit  peu  le  bout  de  la  plume  en  certaine 
faiMii.  vous  tracez  des  lettrea  qui  font  imaginer  des  combats,  des 
tempc'tes,  ou  des  furies  A  ceux  qui  les  lisent,  et  qui  les  rendent  in- 
digne*  ou  tristes;  au  lieu  que  si  vous  remuez  la  plume  d'une 
autre  t'.i.-on  presque  semblable,  la  seule  difference  qui  sera  en  ce 
peu  de  mouvement  letir  peut  donner  des  pensees  toutes  contraires, 
comme  de  paix,  de  repos,  de  douceur,  et  exciter  en  eux  des  pas 
sions  d 'amour  et  de  joie."  —  Descartes,  Principes  de  Philosophic, 
4eme  Partie,  §  197. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         295 

netizing  a  million  other  bars  ?  And  so  why  may  not 
a  particular  brain,  through  which  certain  nutritious 
currents  have  flowed,  fix  a  force  derived  from  these 
currents  in  virtue  of  a  vis  Platonica  or  a  vis  Bacon- 
ica,  and  thus  become  a  magnet  in  the  universe  of 
thought,  exercising  and  imparting  an  influence  which 
is  not  expended,  in  addition  to  that  accounted  for  by 
the  series  of  molecular  changes  in  the  thinking  organ? 

We  must  not  forget  that  force-equivalent  is  one 
thing,  and  quality  of  force-product  is  quite  a  different 
thing.  The  same  outlay  of  muscular  exertion  turns 
the  winch  of  a  coffee-mill  and  of  a  hand-organ.  It  has 
been  said  that  thought  cannot  be  a  physical  force,  be 
cause  it  cannot  be  measured.  An  attempt  has  been 
made  to  measure  thought  as  we  measure  force.  I 
have  two  tables,  one  from  the  "  Annales  Encyclope'- 
diques,"  and  another,  earlier  and  less  minute,  by  the 
poet  Akenside,  in  which  the  poets  are  classified  accord 
ing  to  their  distinctive  qualities ;  each  quality  and  the 
total  average  being  marked  on  a  scale  of  twenty  as  a 
maximum.  I  am  not  sure  that  mental  qualities  are 
not  as  susceptible  of  measurement  as  the  aurora  bore- 
alis  or  the  changes  of  the  weather.  But  even  measura 
ble  quality  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  correlation  of 
forces  than  the  color  of  a  horse  with  his  power  of 
draught ;  and  it  is  with  quality  we  more  especially 
deal  in  intellect  and  morals. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  material  or  physiological  co 
efficient  of  thought  as  being  indispensable  for  its  ex 
ercise  during  the  only  condition  of  existence  of  which, 
apart  from  any  alleged  spiritualistic  experience,  we 
have  any  personal  knowledge.  We  know  our  depend 
ence  too  well  from  seeing  so  many  gallant  and  well- 
freighted  minds  towed  in  helpless  after  a  certain  time 


29C       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

of  service,  —  razees  at  sixty,  dismantled  at  seventy, 
going  to  pieces  and  sinking  at  fourscore.  We  recog 
nize  in  ourselves  the  loss  of  mental  power,  slight  or 
serious,  from  grave  or  trifling  causes.  "  Good  God," 
said  Swift,  "  what  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote  that 
book !  "  And  I  remember  that  an  ingenious  tailor  of 
the  neighboring  city,  on  seeing  a  customer  leave  his 
shop  without  purchasing,  exclaimed,  smiting  his  fore 
head,  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  this  —  emphatically  char 
acterized  —  headache,  I  'd  have  had  a  coat  on  that  man 
before  he  'd  got  out  over  my  doorstep."  Such  is  the 
delicate  adjustment  of  the  intellectual  apparatus  by 
the  aid  of  which  we  clothe  our  neighbor,  whether  he 
will  or  no,  with  our  thoughts  if  we  are  writers  of  books, 
with  our  garments  if  we  are  artificers  of  habiliments. 

The  problem  of  memory  is  closely  connected  with 
the  question  of  the  mechanical  relation  between 
thought  and  structure.  How  intimate  is  the  alliance 
of  memory  with  the  material  condition  of  the  brain,  is 
shown  by  the  effect  of  age,  of  disease,  of  a  blow,  of  in 
toxication.  I  have  known  an  aged  person  repeat  the 
same  question  five,  six,  or  seven  times  during  the  same 
brief  visit  Everybody  knows  the  archbishop's  flavor 
of  apoplexy  in  the  memory  as  in  the  other  mental  pow 
ers.  I  was  once  asked  to  see  to  a  woman  who  had  just 
been  injured  in  the  street.  On  coming  to  herself, 
"  Where  am  I  ?  what  has  happened  ? "  she  asked. 
"  Knocked  down  by  a  horse,  ma'am  ;  stunned  a  little  : 
that  is  all."  A  pause,  "  while  one  with  moderate 
haste  might  count  a  hundred ; "  and  then  again, 
**  Where  am  I  ?  what  has  happened  ?  "  —  "  Knocked 
down  by  a  horse,  ma'am  ;  stunned  a  little :  that  is  all." 
Another  pause,  and  the  same  question  again  ;  and  so 
on  during  the  whole  time  I  was  by  her.  The  same 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS.         297 

tendency  to  repeat  a  question  indefinitely  has  been  ob 
served  in  returning  members  of  those  worshipping  as 
semblies  whose  favorite  hymn  is,  "  We  won't  go  home 
till  morning." 

Is  memory,  then,  a  material  record  ?  Is  the  brain, 
like  the  rocks  of  the  Sinaitic  Valley,  written  all  over 
with  inscriptions  left  by  the  long  caravans  of  thought, 
as  they  have  passed  year  after  year  through  its  mys 
terious  recesses? 

When  we  see  a  distant  railway-train  sliding  by  us 
in  the  same  line,  day  after  day,  we  infer  the  existence 
of  a  track  which  guides  it.  So,  when  some  dear  old 
friend  begins  that  story  we  remember  so  well ;  switch 
ing  off  at  the  accustomed  point  of  digression  ;  coming 
to  a  dead  stop  at  the  puzzling  question  of  chronology ; 
off  the  track  on  the  matter  of  its  being  first  or  second 
cousin  of  somebody's  aunt;  set  on  it  again  by  the 
patient,  listening  wife,  who  knows  it  all  as  she  knows 
her  well-worn  wedding-ring,  —  how  can  we  doubt  that 
there  is  a  track  laid  down  for  the  story  in  some  per 
manent  disposition  of  the  thinking-marrow  ? 

I  need  not  say  that  no  microscope  can  find  the  tab 
let  inscribed  with  the  names  of  early  loves,  the  stains 
left  by  tears  of  sorrow  or  contrition,  the  rent  where 
the  thunderbolt  of  passion  has  fallen,  or  any  legible 
token  that  such  experiences  have  formed  a  part  of  the 
life  of  the  mortal,  the  vacant  temple  of  whose  thought 
it  is  exploring.  It  is  only  as  an  inference,  aided  by 
an  illustration  which  I  will  presently  offer,  that  I  sug 
gest  the  possible  existence,  in  the  very  substance  of 
the  brain-tissue,  of  those  inscriptions  which  Shake 
speare  must  have  thought  of  when  he  wrote,  — 

"  Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow  ; 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain." 


298      PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

The  objection  to  the  existence  of  such  a  material  rec 
ord  —  that  we  renew  our  bodies  many  scores  of  times, 
and  yet  retain  our  earliest  recollections  —  is  entirely 
met  by  the  fact,  that  a  scar  of  any  kind  holds  its  own 
pretty  nearly  through  life  in  spite  of  all  these  same 
changes,  as  we  have  not  far  to  look  to  find  instances. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  a  billion  of  the  starry 
brain-cells  could  be  packed  in  a  cubic  inch,  and  that 
the  convolutions  contain  one  hundred  and  thirty-four 
cubic  inches,  according  to  the  estimate  already  given. 
My  illustration  is  derived  from  microscopic  photogra 
phy.  I  have  a  glass  slide  on  which  is  a  minute  pho 
tographic  picture,  which  is  exactly  covered  when  the 
head  of  a  small  pin  is  laid  upon  it.  In  that  little 
speck  are  clearly  to  be  seen,  by  a  proper  magnifying 
power,  the  following  objects :  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  with  easily -recognized  facsimile  auto 
graphs  of  all  the  signers  ;  the  arms  of  all  the  original 
thirteen  States  ;  the  Capitol  at  Washington  ;  and  very 
good  portraits  of  all  the  Presidents  of  the  United 
States  from  Washington  to  Polk.  These  objects  are 
all  distinguishable  as  a  group  with  a  power  of  fifty 
diameters :  with  a  power  of  three  hundred,  any  one 
of  them  becomes  a  sizable  picture.  You  may  see,  if 
you  will,  the  majesty  of  Washington  on  his  noble  fea 
tures,  or  the  will  of  Jackson  in  those  hard  lines  of  the 
long  face,  crowned  with  that  bristling  head  of  hair  in 
a  perpetual  state  of  electrical  divergence  and  centri 
fugal  self-assertion.  Remember  that  each  of  these 
faces  is  the  record  of  a  life. 

Now  recollect  that  there  was  an  interval  between 
the  exposure  of  the  negative  in  the  camera  and  its  de 
velopment  by  pouring  a  wash  over  it,  when  all  these 
pictured  objects  existed  potentially,  but  absolutely  in- 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORAJLS.         299 

visible,  and  incapable  of  recognition,  in  a  speck  of 
collodion-film,  which  a  pin's  head  would  cover,  and 
then  think  what  Alexandrian  libraries,  what  Congres 
sional  document-loads  of  positively  intelligible  char 
acters,  —  such  as  one  look  of  the  recording  angel 
would  bring  out;  many  of  which  we  can  ourselves 
develop  at  will,  or  which  come  before  our  eyes  unbid 
den,  like  "Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin,"  —  might 
be  held  in  those  convolutions  of  the  brain  which  wrap 
the  talent  intrusted  to  us,  too  often  as  the  folded  nap 
kin  of  the  slothful  servant  hid  the  treasure  his  master 
had  lent  him  !  a 

Three  facts,  so  familiar  that  I  need  only  allude  to 
them,  show  how  much  more  is  recorded  in  the  memory 
than  we  may  ever  take  cognizance  of.  The  first  is  the 
conviction  of  having  been  in  the  same  precise  circum 
stances  once  or  many  times  before.  Dr.  Wigan  says, 
never  but  once ;  but  such  is  not  my  experience.  The 
second  is  the  panorama  of  their  past  lives,  said,  by 
people  rescued  from  drowning,  to  have  flashed  before 
them.6  I  had  it  once  myself,  accompanied  by  an  ig- 

*  ••  Eas  mutationes  in  sensorio  conservatas,  ideas  multi,  nos  ves 
tigia  rerum  vocabimus,  qua-  non  in  mente  sed  in  ipso  corpore,  et 
in  medulla  quidem  cerebri  iueffabili  modo  incredibiliter  minutis 
notis  et  copia  infinita  inscriptse  sunt."  —  Haller,  quoted  by  Dr. 
Laycock,  Brit,  and  For.  Med.  Rev.  xix.  310. 

"  Different  matters  are  arranged  in  my  head,"  said  Napoleon, 
"  as  in  drawers.  I  open  one  drawer,  and  close  another,  as  I  wish. 
I  have  never  been  kept  awake  by  an  involuntary  preoccupation 
of  the  mind.  If  I  desire  repose,  I  shut  up  all  the  drawers,  and 
sleep.  I  have  always  slept  when  I  wanted  rest,  and  almost  at 
will." —  Table-Talk  and  Opinions  of  Napoleon  Buonaparte,  Lon 
don,  1869,  p.  10. 

*  The  following  story  is  related  as  fact.     I  condense  it  from 
the  newspaper  account. 

"  A.  held  a  bond  against  B.  for  several  hundred  dollars.    When 


300       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

noble  ducking  and  scrambling  self-rescue.  The  third 
is  the  revival  of  apparently  obsolete  impressions,  of 
which  many  strange  cases  are  related  in  nervous  young 
women  and  in  dying  persons,  and  which  the  story  of 
the  dog  Argus  in  the  "  Odyssey,"  and  of  the  parrot  so 
charmingly  told  by  Campbell,  would  lead  us  to  sup 
pose  not  of  rare  occurrence  in  animals."  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  and  I  have  tried  to  show  that  it  is  not  im 
probable,  that  memory  is  a  material  record  ;  that  the 
brain  is  scarred  and  seamed  with  infinitesimal  hiero- 

it  came  due,  he  searched  for  it,  but  could  not  find  it.  He  told 
the  facts  to  I  >.,  who  denied  having  given  the  bond,  and  intimated 
a  fraudulent  design  on  the  part  of  A.,  who  was  compelled  to  sub 
mit  to  his  loss  and  the  charge  against  him.  Years  afterwards,  A. 
was  bathing  in  Charles  River,  when  he  was  seized  with  cramp, 
and  nearly  drowned.  On  coming  to  his  senses  he  went  to  his 
bookcase,  took  out  a  book,  and  from  between  its  leaves  took  the 
missing  bond  In  the  sudden  picture  of  his  entire  life,  which 
flashed  before  him  as  he  was  sinking,  the  act  of  putting  the  bond 
in  the  book,  and  the  book  in  the  bookcase,  had  represented  it 
self." 

The  reader  who  likes  to  hear  the  whole  of  a  story  may  be 
pleased  to  learn  that  the  debt  was  paid  with  interest. 

•  "  A  troop  of  cavalry  which  had  served  on  the  Continent  was 
disbanded  in  York.  Sir  Robert  Clayton  turned  out  the  old 
horses  in  Knavesmire  to  have  their  run  for  life.  One  day,  while 
grazing  promiscuously  and  apart  from  each  other,  a  storm  gath 
ered;  and,  when  the  thunder  pealed  and  the  lightning  flashed, 
they  were  seen  to  get  together,  and  form  in  line,  in  almost  as 
perfect  order  as  if  they  had  had  their  old  masters  on  their  backs." 
—  Laycock,  Brit,  and  For.  Med.  Rev.  vol.  xix.  309. 

"  After  the  slaughter  at  Vionville,  on  the  18th  of  August  (last), 
a  strange  and  touching  spectacle  was  presented.  On  the  evening- 
call  being  sounded  by  the  first  regiment  of  Dragoons  of  the  Guard, 
six  hundred  and  two  riderless  horses  answered  to  the  summons, 
— jaded,  and  in  many  cases  maimed.  The  noble  animals  still  re 
tained  their  disciplined  habits."  —  German  Post,  quoted  by  the 
Spectator. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         301 

glyphics,  as  the  features  are  engraved  with  the  traces  of 
thought  and  passion.  And,  if  this  is  so,  must  not  the 
record,  we  ask,  perish  with  the  organ  ?  Alas !  how 
often  do  we  see  it  perish  before  the  organ !  —  the 
mighty  satirist  tamed  into  oblivious  imbecility ;  the 
great  scholar  wandering  without  sense  of  time  or  place 
among  his  alcoves,  taking  his  books  one  by  one  from 
the  shelves,  and  fondly  patting  them;  a  child  once 
more  among  his  toys,  but  a  child  whose  to-morrows 
come  hungry,  and  not  full-handed,  —  come  as  birds  of 
prey  in  the  place  of  the  sweet  singers  of  morning. 
We  must  all  become  as  little  children  if  we  live  long 
enough  ;  but  how  blank  an  existence  the  wrinkled  in 
fant  must  carry  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  if  the 
Power  that  gave  him  memory  does  not  repeat  the 
miracle  by  restoring  it ! 

The  connection  between  thought  and  the  structure 
and  condition  of  the  brain  is  evidently  so  close  that 
all  we  have  to  do  is  to  study  it.  It  is  not  in  this  di 
rection  that  materialism  is  to  be  feared  :  we  do  not  find 
Hamlet  and  Faust,  right  and  wrong,  the  valor  of  men 
and  the  purity  of  women,  by  testing  for  albumen,  or 
examining  fibres  in  microscopes. 

It  is  in  the  moral  world  that  materialism  has  worked 
the  strangest  confusion.  In  various  forms,  under  im 
posing  names  and  aspects,  it  has  thrust  itself  into  the 
moral  relations,  until  one  hardly  knows  where  to  look 
for  any  first  principles  without  upsetting  everything 
in  searching  for  them. 

The  moral  universe  includes  nothing  but  the  exer 
cise  of  choice :  all  else  is  machinery.  What  we  can 
help  and  what  we  cannot  help  are  on  two  sides  of  a 
line  which  separates  the  sphere  of  human  responsibil- 


302   PAGES  FROM  AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LI  I  T:. 

ify  from  that  of  the  Being  who  has  arranged  ami  con 
trols  the  order  of  things. 

The  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  has  been  an 
open  one,  from  the  days  of  Milton's  demons  in  con 
clave  to  the  recent  most  noteworthy  essay  of  Mr.  Haz- 
ard,  our  Rhode  Island  neighbor."  It  still  hangs  sus 
pended  between  the  seemingly  exhaustive  strongest 
motive  argument  and  certain  residual  convictions.  The 
sense  that  we  are,  to  a  limited  extent,  self-determining ; 
the  sense  of  effort  in  willing ;  the  sense  of  responsibility 
in  view  of  the  future,  and  the  verdict  of  conscience  in 
review  of  the  past,  —  all  of  these  are  open  to  the  ac 
cusation  of  fallacy ;  but  they  all  leave  a  certain  undis 
charged  balance  in  most  minds.6  We  can  invoke  the 
strong  arm  of  the  Deus  ex  machina,  as  Mr.  Hazard, 
and  Kant  and  others,  before  him,  have  done.  Our 
will  may  be  a  primary  initiating  cause  or  force,  as 
unexplainable,  as  unreducible,  as  indecomposable,  as 
impossible  if  you  choose,  but  as  real  to  our  belief,  as 
the  cetemitas  a  parte  ante.  The  divine  foreknowledge 
is  no  more  in  the  way  of  delegated  choice  than  the  di 
vine  omnipotence  is  in  the  way  of  delegated  power. 
The  Infinite  can  surely  slip  the  cable  of  the  finite  if  it 
choose  so  to  do. 

•  "  Witness  on  him  that  any  parfit  clerk  is, 
That  in  scole  is  gret  altercation 
In  this  matere,  and  gret  disputison, 
And  hath  ben,  of  an  hundred  thousand  men  ; 
But  I  ne  cannot  boult  it  to  the  bren." 

Chaucer,  The  Nonne't  Prceste's  Tale. 

*  "  But,  sir,  as  to  the  doctrine  of  necessity,  no  man  believes  it. 
If  a  man  should  give  me  arguments  that  I  do  not  see,  though  I 
could  not  answer  them,  should  I  believe  that  I  do  not  see  ?  "  — 
Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  vol.  viii.  p.  331.  London,  1848. 

"  What  have  you  to  do  with  liberty  and  necessity  ?  or  what 
more  than  to  hold  your  tongue  about  it?"  —  Johnson  to  Bos- 
well.  Ibid,  letter  396. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS. 

It  is  one  thing  to  prove  a  proposition  like  the  doc 
trine  of  necessity  in  terms,  and  another  thing  to  ac 
cept  it  as  an  article  of  faith.  There  are  cases  in  which 
I  would  oppose  to  the  credo  quia  impossibile  est  a 
paradox  as  bold  and  as  serviceable,  —  nego  quia  pro- 
batum  est.  Even  Mr.  Huxley,  who  throws  quite  as 
much  responsibility  on  protoplasm  as  it  will  bear, 
allows  that  "  our  volition  counts  for  something  as  a 
condition  of  the  course  of  events." 

I  reject,  therefore,  the  mechanical  doctrine  which 
makes  me  the  slave  of  outside  influences,  whether  it 
work  with  the  logic  of  Edwards,  or  the  averages  of 
Buckle ;  whether  it  come  in  the  shape  of  the  Greek's 
destiny,  or  the  Mahometan's  fatalism ;  or  in  that  other 
aspect,  dear  to  the  band  of  believers,  whom  Beesly  of 
Everton,  speaking  in  the  character  of  John  Wesley, 
characterized  as 

"  The  crocodile  crew  that  believe  in  election."  • 

But  I  claim  the  right  to  eliminate  all  mechanical 
ideas  which  have  crowded  into  the  sphere  of  intelli 
gent  choice  between  right  and  wrong.  The  pound  of 
flesh  I  will  grant  to  Nemesis ;  but,  in  the  name  of 
human  nature,  not  one  drop  of  blood,  —  not  one  drop. 

Moral  chaos  began  with  the  idea  of  transmissible 
responsibility^6  It  seems  the  stalest  of  truisms  to  say 
that  every  moral  act,  depending  as  it  does  on  choice, 

0  Southey's  Life  of  Wesley,  vol.  ii.  note  28. 

4  "  II  est  sans  doute  qu'il  n'y  a  rien  qui  choque  plus  notre 
raison  que  de  dir  eque  le  peche  du  premier  homme  ait  rendu 
coupables  ceux  qui,  dtant  si  e'loignds  de  cette  source,  semblent 
incapables  d'y  participer.  Get  ecoulement  ne  nous  parait  pas 
seulement  impossible,  il  nous  semble  meme  tres  injuste  ;  car  qu'y- 
a-t-il  de  plus  contraire  au  regies  de  notre  miserable  justice  que 
de  damner  dteruellement  un  enfant  incapable  de  voloute",  pour  un 


304       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

is  in  its  nature  exclusively  personal ;  that  its  penalty, 
if  it  have  any,  is  payable,  not  to  bearer,  not  to  order, 
but  only  to  the  creditor  himself.  To  treat  a  mal-voli- 
tion,  which  is  inseparably  involved  with  an  internal 
condition,  as  capable  of  external  transfer  from  one 
person  to  another,  is  simply  to  materialize  it.  When 
we  can  take  the  dimensions  of  virtue  by  triangulation  ; 
when  we  can  literally  weigh  Justice  in  her  own  scales ; 
when  we  can  speak  of  the  specific  gravity  of  truth,  or 
the  square  root  of  honesty ;  when  we  can  send  a 
statesman  his  integrity  in  a  package  to  Washington, 
if  he  happen  to  have  left  it  behind,  —  then  we  may 
begin  to  speak  of  the  moral  character  of  inherited 
tendencies,  which  belong  to  the  machinery  for  which 
the  Sovereign  Power  alone  is  responsible.  The  mis 
fortune  of  perverse  instincts,  which  adhere  to  us  as 
congenital  inheritances,  should  go  to  our  side  of  the 

pe*chd  oil  il  parait  avoir  si  peu  de  part  qu'il  est  commis  six  milli 
ons  avant  qu'il  fut  en  etre  ?  " —  Pascal,  Pensees,  c.  x.  §  1. 

"Justice  "  and  "mercy  "  often  have  a  technical  meaning  when 
applied  to  the  Supreme  Being.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  has  expressed 
himself  very  freely  as  to  the  juggling  with  words.  —  Examina 
tion  of  Sir.  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  i.  131. 

The  Romanists  fear  for  the  future  welfare  of  babes  that  per 
ish  unborn  ;  and  the  extraordinary  means  which  are  taken  to 
avert  their  impending  ••  punishment "  are  well  known. 

Thomas  Shepard,  our  famous  Cambridge  minister,  seems  to 
have  shared  these  apprehensions.  See  his  Letter  in  Young's 
Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims  of  Massachusetts,  p.  538.  Boston,  1846. 

The  author  of  ••  The  Day  of  Doom  "  is  forced  by  his  logic  to 
hand  the  infants  over  to  the  official  tormentor,  only  {^signing 
them  the  least  uncomfortable  of  the  torture-chambers. 

However  these  doctrines  may  be  softened  in  the  belief  of  many, 
the  primary  barbarism  on  which  they  rest  —  that  is,  the  transfer 
of  mechanical  ideas  into  the  world  of  morals,  with  which  they 
are  in  no  sense  homologous  —  is  almost  universally  prevalent,  and 
like  to  be  at  present. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.         305 

account,  if  the  books  of  heaven  are  kept,  as  the  great 
Church  of  Christendom  maintains  they  are,  by  double 
entry.  But  the  absurdity  which  has  been  held  up  to 
ridicule  in  the  nursery  has  been  enforced  as  the  high 
est  reason  upon  older  children.  Did  our  forefathers 
tolerate  -3Dsop  among  them  ?  "I  cannot  trouble  the 
water  where  you  are,"  says  the  lamb  to  the  wolf : 
"  don't  you  see  that  I  am  farther  down  the  stream  ?  " 
—  "  But  a  year  ago  you  called  me  ill  names."  —  "  Oh 
sir  !  a  year  ago  I  was  not  born."  —  "  Sirrah,"  replies 
the  wolf,  "  if  it  was  not  you,  it  was  your  father,  and 
that  is  all  one  ;  "  and  finishes  with  the  usual  practical 
application. 

If  a  created  being  has  no  rights  which  his  Creator 
is  bound  to  respect,  there  is  an  end  to  all  moral  rela 
tions  between  them.  Good  Father  Abraham  thought 
he  had,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  give  his  opinion. 
"Far  be  it  from  Thee,"  he  says,  to  do  so  and  so. 
And  Pascal,  whose  reverence  amounted  to  theopho- 
bia,"  could  treat  of  the  duties  of  the  Supreme  to 
the  dependent  being.*  If  we  suffer  for  anything  ex 
cept  our  own  wrong-doing,  to  call  it  punishment  is 
like  speaking  of  a  yard  of  veracity  or  a  square  inch  of 
magnanimity. 

So  to  rate  the  gravity  of  a  mal- volition  by  its  con 
sequences  is  the  merest  sensational  materialism.  A 
little  child  takes  a  prohibited  friction-match :  it  kin- 

•  I  use  this  term  to  designate  a  state  of  mind  thus  described  by 
Jeremy  Taylor  :  "  There  are  some  persons  so  miserable  and  scru 
pulous,  such  perpetual  tormenters  of  themselves  with  unnecessary 
fears,  that  their  meat  and  drink  is  a  snare  to  their  consciences. 

"  These  persons  do  not  believe  noble  things  of  God." 

*  "  II  y  a  un  devoir  rdciproque  entre  Dieu  et  les  homines.  .  .  . 
Quid  debui  f  '  accusez  moi,'  dit  Dieu  dans  Isaie.    Dieu  doit  ac- 
complir  ses  promesses,"  etc.  —  Pensces,  xxiii.  3. 


30G       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

dies  a  conflagration  with  it,  which  burns  down  the 
house,  and  perishes  itself  in  the  flames.  Mechanically, 
this  child  was  an  incendiary  and  a  suicide ;  morally, 
neither.  Shall  we  hesitate  to  speak  as  charitably  of 
multitudes  of  weak  and  ignorant  grown-up  children, 
moving  about  on  a  planet  whose  air  is  a  deadly  poison, 
which  kills  all  that  breathe  it  four  or  five  scores  of 
years? 

Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  pretence  that  the  liabili 
ties  incurred  by  any  act  of  mal-volition  are  to  be 
measured  on  the  scale  of  the  Infinite,  and  not  on  that 
of  the  total  moral  capacity  of  the  finite  agent,  —  a  me 
chanical  application  of  the  Oriental  way  of  dealing 
with  offences.  The  sheik  or  sultan  chops  a  man's 
head  off  for  a  look  he  does  not  like :  it  is  not  the 
amount  of  wrong,  but  the  importance  of  the  personage 
who  has  been  outraged.  We  have  none  of  those  moral 
relations  with  power,  as  such,  which  the  habitual  East 
ern  modes  of  speech  seem  to  imply. 

The  next  movement  in  moral  materialism  is  to  estab 
lish  a  kind  of  scale  of  equivalents  between  perverse 
moral  choice  and  physical  suffering.  Pain  often  cures 
ignorance,  as  we  know,  —  as  when  a  child  learns  not 
to  handle  fire  by  burning  its  fingers,  —  but  it  does  not 
change  the  moral  nature."  Children  may  be  whipped 
into  obedience,  but  not  into  virtue ;  and  it  is  not  pre 
tended  that  the  penal  colony  of  heaven  has  sent  back 
a  single  reformed  criminal.  We  hang  men  for  our 
convenience  or  safety ;  sometimes  shoot  them  for  re 
venge.  Thus  we  come  to  associate  the  infliction  of  in 
jury  with  offences  as  their  satisfactory  settlement,  — 
a  kind  of  neutralization  of  them,  as  of  an  acid  with  an 

•  "  No  troubles  will,  of  themselves,  work  a  change  in  a  wicked 
heart."  —  Matthew  Henry,  Com.  on  Luke,  rxiii.  29. 


MECHANISM    IN   THOUGHT   AND   MORALS.          307 

alkali :  so  that  we  feel  as  if  a  jarring  moral  universe 
would  be  all  right  if  only  suffering  enough  were  added 
to  it.  This  scheme  of  chemical  equivalents  seems  to 
me,  I  confess,  a  worse  materialism  than  making  pro 
toplasm  master  of  arts  and  doctor  of  divinity. 

Another  mechanical  notion  is  that  which  treats 
moral  evil  as  bodily  disease  has  so  long  been  treated, 
—  as  being  a  distinct  entity,  a  demon  to  be  expelled,  a 
load  to  be  got  rid  of,  instead  of  a  condition,  or  the  re 
sult  of  a  condition."  But  what  is  most  singular  in  the 
case  of  moral  disease  is,  that  it  has  been  forgotten 
that  it  is  a  living  creature  in  which  it  occurs,  and 
that  all  living  creatures  are  the  subjects  of  natural  and 
spontaneous  healing  processes.  A  broken  vase  cannot 
mend  itself ;  but  a  broken  bone  can.  Nature,  that  is, 
the  Divinity,  in  his  every-  day  working  methods,  will 
soon  make  it  as  strong  as  ever. 

Suppose  the  beneficent  self-healing  process  to  have 
repaired  the  wound  in  the  moral  nature :  is  it  never 
to  become  an  honest  scar,  but  always  liable  to  be  re 
opened  ?  Is  there  no  outlawry  of  an  obsolete  self-de 
termination  ?  If  the  President  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  impaled  a  fly  on  a 
pin  when  he  was  ten  years  old,  is  it  to  stand  against 
him,  crying  for  a  stake  through  his  body,  in  scecula 
sceculorum  ?  b  The  most  popular  hymn  of  Protestant 
ism,  and  the  "  Dies  Irae  "  of  Romanism,  are  based  on 
this  assumption :  Nil  inultum  remanebit.  So  it  is 

•  "  The  strength  of  modern  therapeutics  lies  in  the  clearer  per 
ception,  than  formerly,  of  the  great  truth,  that  diseases  are  but 
perverted  life-processes,  and  have  for  their  natural  history,  not 
only  a  beginning,  but  equally  a  period  of  culmination  and  de 
cline."  —  Medicine  in  Modern  Times.    Dr.  GulVs  Address,  p.  187. 

•  There  is  no  more  significant  evidence  of  natural  moral  evo- 


308        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

that  a  condition  of  a  conscious  being  has  been  mate 
rialized  into  a  purely  inorganic  brute  fact,  —  not 
merely  dehumanized,  but  deanimalized  and  devital 
ized. 

Here  it  was  that  Swedenborg,  whose  whole  secret  I 
will  not  pretend  to  have  fully  opened,  though  I  have 
tried  with  the  key  of  a  thinker  whom  I  love  and 
honor,  —  that  Swedenborg,  I  say,  seems  to  have  come 
in,  if  not  with  a  new  revelation,  at  least  infusing  new 
life  into  the  earlier  ones.  What  we  are  will  deter 
mine  the  company  we  are  to  keep,  and  not  the  avoir- 
dupois  weight  of  our  moral  exuviae,  strapped  on  our 
shoulders  like  a  porter's  burden. 

Having  once  materialized  the  whole  province  of  self- 
determination  and  its  consequences,  the  next  thing  is, 
of  course,  to  materialize  the  methods  of  avoiding  these 
consequences.  We  are  all,  more  or  less,  idolaters,  and 
believers  in  quackery.  We  love  specifics  better  than 
regimen,  and  observances  better  than  self-government. 
The  moment  our  belief  divorces  itself  from  character, 
the  mechanical  element  begins  to  gain  upon  it,  and 
tends  to  its  logical  conclusion  in  the  Japanese  prayer- 
mill.'1 

lution  than  the  way  in  which  children  outgrow  the  cruelty  which 
is  so  common  in  what  we  call  their  tender  years. 

"  As  ruthless  as  a  baby  with  a  worm ; 
As  cruel  as  a  schoolboy  ere  he  grows 
To  pity,  —  more  from  ignorance  than  will." 

Tennyson,  Walking  to  the  Mail. 

•  One  can  easily  conceive  the  confusion  which  might  be  wrought 
in  young  minds  by  such  teaching  as  this  of  our  excellent  Thomas 
Shepard  :  — 

"The  Paths  to  Hell  be  but  two :  the  first  is  the  Path  of  Sin, 
which  is  a  dirty  Way;  Secondly,  the  Path  of  Duties,  which 
(rested  in)  is  but  a  cleaner  Way."  —  Quoted  by  Israel  Loring, 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT  AND   MORALS.         309 

Brothers  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  iny  slight 
task  is  finished.  I  have  always  regarded  these  occa 
sions  as  giving  an  opportunity  of  furnishing  hints  for 
future  study,  rather  than  of  exhibiting  the  detailed  re 
sults  of  thought.  I  cannot  but  hope  that  I  have 
thrown  some  ray  of  suggestion,  or  brought  out  some 
clink  of  questionable  soundness,  which  will  justify  me 
for  appearing  with  the  lantern  and  the  hammer. 

The  hardest  and  most  painful  task  of  the  student 
of  to-day  is  to  occidentalize  and  modernize  the  Asiatic 
modes  of  thought  which  have  come  down  to  us  closely 
wedded  to  mediaeval  interpretations.  We  are  called 
upon  to  assert  the  rights  and  dignity  of  our  humanity, 
if  it  were  only  that  our  worship  might  be  worthy  the 
acceptance  of  a  wise  and  magnanimous  Sovereign. 
Self-abasement  is  the  proper  sign  of  homage  to  supe 
riors  with  the  Oriental.  The  Occidental  demands  self- 
respect  in  his  inferiors  as  a  condition  of  accepting 
their  tribute  to  him  as  of  any  value.  The  Icotou  in  all 
its  forms,  the  pitiful  acts  of  creeping,  crawling* fawn 
ing,  like  a  dog  at  his  master's  feet  (which  acts  are 
signified  by  the  word  we  translate  worship,  according 
to  the  learned  editor  of  "  The  Comprehensive  Commen 
tary"),0  are  offensive,  not  gratifying  to  him.  Does 
not  the  man  of  science  who  accepts  with  true  manly 
reverence  the  facts  of  Nature,  in  the  face  of  all  his 
venerated  traditions,  offer  a  more  acceptable  service 
than  he  who  repeats  the  formulae,  and  copies  the  ges- 

Pastor  of  the  West  Church  in  Sudbury,  in  A  Practical  Discourse, 
etc.  Boston  :  Kneeland  &  Green,  1749. 

However  sound  the  doctrine,  it  is  sure  to  lead  to  the  substitu 
tion  of  some  easy  mechanical  contrivance,  —  some  rite,  penance,  or 
formula,  —  for  perpetual  and  ever-renewed  acts  of  moral  self- 
determination. 

*  See  note  on  Matthew  xi.  1 1. 


310        PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

tures,  derived  from  the  language  and  customs  of  des 
pots  and  their  subjects?  The  attitude  of  modern 
Science  is  erect,  her  aspect  serene,  her  determination 
inexorable,  her  onward  movement  unflinching ;  be 
cause  she  believes  herself,  in  the  order  of  Providence, 
the  true  successor  of  the  men  of  old  who  brought 
down  the  light  of  heaven  to  men.  She  has  reclaimed 
astronomy  and  cosmogony,  and  is  already  laying  a  firm 
hand  on  anthropology,  over  which  another  battle  must 
be  fought,  with  the  usual  result,  to  come  sooner  or 
later.  Humility  may  be  taken  for  granted  as  existing 
in  every  sane  human  being ;  but  it  may  be  that  it  most 
truly  manifests  itself  to-day  in  the  readiness  with  which 
we  bow  to  new  truths  as  they  come  from  the  scholars, 
the  teachers,  to  whom  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
giveth  understanding.  If  a  man  should  try  to  show 
it  in  the  way  good  men  did  of  old,  —  by  covering  him 
self  with  tow-cloth,  sitting  on  an  ash-heap,  and  disfig 
uring  his  person,  —  we  should  send  him  straightway 
to  Worcester  or  Somerville ;  and  if  he  began  to  "  rend 
his  garments "  it  would  suggest  the  need  of  a  strait- 
jacket. 

Our  rocky  New  England  and  old  rocky  Judaea  al 
ways  seem  to  have  a  kind  of  yearning  for  each  other : 
Jerusalem  governs  Massachusetts,  and  Massachusetts 
would  like  to  colonize  Jerusalem. 

"  The  pine-tree  dreameth  of  the  palm, 
The  palm-tree  of  the  pine." 

But  political  freedom  inevitably  generates  a  new  type 
of  religious  character,  as  the  conclave  that  contem 
plates  endowing  a  dotard  with  infallibility  has  found 
out,  we  trust,  before  this  time."  The  American  of  to- 

*  We  have  since  discovered  that  the  dogma  was  a  foregone  con 
clusion. 


MECHANISM   IN  THOUGHT  AND   MORALS.         311 

day  may  challenge  for  himself  the  noble  frankness  in 
his  highest  relations  which  did  honor  to  the  courage  of 
the  Father  of  the  Faithful. 

And  he  may  well  ask,  in  view  of  the  slavish  beliefs 
which  have  governed  so  large  a  part  of  Christendom, 
whether  it  was  an  ascent  or  a  descent  from  the  Ro 
man's 

Sifractus  illabatur  orbis 

Impavidum  ferient  ruince 
to  the  monk's 

Quid  sum  miser  tune  facturus, 
Quern  patronum  rogaturus  f 

Who  can  help  asking  such  questions  as  he  sits  in 
the  light  of  those  blazing  windows  of  the  ritual  renais 
sance,  burning  with  hectic  colors  like  the  leaves  of 
the  decaying  forest  before  the  wind  has  swept  it  bare, 
and  listens  to  the  delicious  strains  of  the  quartet  as  it 
carols  forth  its  smiling  devotions? 

Our  dwellings  are  built  on  the  shell-heaps,  the 
kitchen-middens  of  the  age  of  stone.  Inherited  be 
liefs,  as  obscure  in  their  origin  as  the  parentage  of  the 
cave-dwellers,  are  stronger  with  many  minds  than  the 
evidence  of  the  senses  and  the  simplest  deductions  of 
the  intelligence.  Persons  outside  of  Bedlam  can  talk 
of  the  "  dreadful  depravity  of  lunatics,"  •  —  the  suffer 
ers  whom  we  have  learned  to  treat  with  the  tenderest 
care,  as  the  most  to  be  pitied  of  all  God's  children.* 
Mr.  Gosse  can  believe  that  a  fossil  skeleton,  with  the 
remains  of  food  in  its  interior,  was  never  part  of  a 
living  creature,  but  was  made  just  as  we  find  it,* — a 
kind  of  stage-property,  a  clever  cheat,  got  up  by  the 
great  Manager  of  the  original  Globe  Theatre.  All 

•  Brit,  and  Foreign  Med.  Review  for  July,  1841 ;  Wigan,  op.  cit. 

*  Owen,  in  Encyc.  Brit.  8th   edition,  art.  "  Paleontology,"  p. 
124,  note. 


312       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

we  can  say  of  such  persons  is,  that  their  "  illative 
sense,"  to  use  Dr.  Newman's  phrase,  seems  to  most  of 
us  abnormal  and  unhealthy.  We  cannot  help  looking 
at  them  as  affected  with  a  kind  of  mental  Daltonism. 

"  Believing  ignorance,"  said  an  old  Scotch  divine, 
"  is  much  better  than  rash  and  presumptuous  knowl 
edge."  a  But  which  is  most  likely  to  be  presumptuous, 
ignorance,  or  knowledge  ?  True  faith  and  true  philos 
ophy  ought  to  be  one  ;  and  those  disputes,  —  a  double 
vSritSy  —  those  statements,  "  true  according  to  philos 
ophy,  and  false  according  to  faith,"  condemned  by  the 
last  Council  of  Lateran,*  ought  not  to  find  a  place  in 
the  records  of  an  age  like  our  own.  Yet  so  enlight 
ened  a  philosopher  as  Faraday  could  say  in  a  letter  to 
one  of  his  correspondents,  "  I  claim  an  absolute  dis 
tinction  between  a  religious  and  an  ordinary  belief. 
If  I  am  reproached  for  weakness  in  refusing  to  apply 
those  mental  operations,  which  I  think  good  in  high 
things,  to  the  very  highest,  I  am  content  to  bear  the 
reproach." 

We  must  bestir  ourselves  ;  for  the  new  generation  is 
upon  us,  —  the  marrow-bone-splitting  descendants  of 
the  old  cannibal  troglodytes.  Civilized  as  well  as  sav 
age  races  live  upon  their  parents  and  grandparents. 
Each  generation  strangles  and  devours  its  predecessor. 
The  young  Feejeean  carries  a  cord  in  his  girdle  for  his 
father's  neck  ;  the  young  American,  a  string  of  prop 
ositions  or  syllogisms  in  his  brain  to  finish  the  same  rel 
ative.  The  old  man  says,  "Son,  I  have  swallowed 
and  digested  the  wisdom  of  the  past."  The  young 
man  says,  "  Sire,  I  proceed  to  swallow  and  digest  thee 
with  all  thou  knowest."  There  never  was  a  sand- 

•  Bnckle,  Hi*t.  of  Civilization,  ii.  327,  note. 

*  Leibnitz,  Confid.  ntr  la  Doctrine  tfun  Etprit  Univernel. 


MECHANISM   IN   THOUGHT   AND  MORALS.         313 

glass,  nor  a  clepsydra,  nor  a  horologe,  that  counted 
the  hours  and  days  and  years  with  such  terrible  signifi 
cance  as  this  academic  chronograph  which  has  just 
completed  a  revolution.  The  prologue  of  life  is  fin 
ished  here  at  twenty :  then  come  five  acts  of  a  decade 
each,  and  the  play  is  over,  with  now  and  then  a  pleas 
ant  or  a  tedious  afterpiece,  when  half  the  lights  are 
put  out,  and  half  the  orchestra  is  gone. 

We  have  just  seen  a  life  finished  whose  whole  com 
pass  was  included  within  the  remembered  years  of 
many  among  us.  Why  was  our  great  prose-minstrel 
mourned  by  nations,  and  buried  with  kings?  Not 
merely  because  of  that  genius,  prolific  as  Nature  her 
self,  we  might  almost  say,  in  types  of  character,  and 
aspects  of  life,  whom,  for  this  sufficient  reason,  we 
dare  to  name  in  connection  with  the  great  romancer  of 
the  North,  and  even  with  the  supreme  poet  of  man 
kind,  —  was  he  not  a  kind  of  Shakespeare,  working  in 
terra-cotta  instead  of  marble  ?  —  but  because  he  vin 
dicated  humanity,  not  against  its  Maker,  but  against 
itself ;  because  he  took  the  part  of  his  frail,  erring, 
sorrowing,  dying  fellow-creature,  against  the  demonol- 
ogists  who  had  pretended  to  write  the  history  of  hu 
man  nature,  with  a  voice  that  touched  the  heart  as  no 
other  had  done  since  the  Scotch  peasant  was  laid  down 
to  slumber  in  the  soil  his  song  had  hallowed.* 

We  are  not  called  to  mourn  over  the  frailties  of  the 

•  Providence  has  arranged  an  admirable  system  of  compensa 
tions  in  the  distribution  of  talents  and  instincts:  so  that,  as  in  the 
rule  of  three,  the  product  of  the  extremes  of  belief  equals  that 
of  the  middle  terms;  or,  as  in  the  astatic  needles,  the  opposite 
polar  forces  are  balanced  against  each  other.  In  Scotland,  the 
creed  is  the  Westminster  Confession,  and  the  national  poet  is 
Burns.  In  England,  Bunyan  stands  at  one  end  of  the  shelf,  and 
Dickens  at  the  other. 


314       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

great  story-teller,  as  we  must  sorrow  in  remembering 
those  of  the  sweet  singer  of  Scotland.  But  we  all 
need  forgiveness  ;  and  there  must  be  generous  failings 
in  every  true  manhood  which  it  makes  Heaven  itself 
happier  to  pardon.  "  I  am  very  human,"  Dickens 
said  to  me  one  of  the  last  times  I  ever  met  him.  And 
so  I  feel  as  if  I  might  repeat,  in  tender  remembrance 
of  Charles  Dickens,  a  few  of  the  lines  I  wrote  some 
years  ago  as  my  poor  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Robert 
Burns:  — 

We  praise  him,  not  for  gifts  divine; 

His  Muse  was  born  of  woman; 
His  manhood  breathes  in  every  line: 

Was  ever  heart  more  human  ? 

We  love  him,  praise  him,  just  for  this,  — 

In  every  form  and  feature, 
Through  wealth  and  want,  through  woe  and  bliss, 

He  saw  his  fellow-creature. 

Ay,  Heaven  had  set  one  living  man 

Beyond  the  pedant's  tether: 
His  virtues,  frailties,  He  may  scan 

Who  weighs  them  all  together ! 


IX. 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  VERSIFICATION. 

HARMONIES   OF   ORGANIC   AND   ANIMAL  LIFE. 

WE  are  governed  in  our  apparently  voluntary  ac 
tions  by  impulses  derived  from  many  obscure  sources 
which  act  upon  us  almost  without  our  cognizance. 
The  digestive  system  legislates  largely  for  our  habits, 
bodily  and  mental,  and  its  condition  has  no  insignifi 
cant  effect  upon  our  intellectual  and  spiritual  states. 
We  are  commanded  to  a  considerable  extent  by  our 
idiosyncrasies  and  infirmities.  The  secret  of  our  di 
versities  as  social  beings  lies  far  more  in  our  peptic 
capacities,  in  our  indifference  to  exposure  or  liability 
to  suffer  from  it,  in  our  sensibility  to  cold  and  heat  or 
to  the  air  of  ill-ventilated  rooms,  in  the  varying  amount 
of  sleep  we  require,  in  the  degree  of  ability  to  bear 
strong  light,  in  the  quickness  or  dulness  of  our  hear 
ing,  in  the  greater  or  less  degree  of  fatigue  induced 
by  the  standing  posture,  and  in  the  demands  of  inter 
nal  organs  which  have  a  will  if  not  a  voice  of  their 
own,  than  our  friends  who  call  us  good  companions  or 
otherwise  are  always  ready  to  believe. 

There  are  two  great  vital  movements  preeminently 
distinguished  by  their  rhythmical  character,  —  the 
respiration  and  the  pulse.  These  are  the  true  time 
keepers  of  the  body;  having  a  constant  relation  in 
health,  the  proportion  being,  as  Mr.  Hutchinson  has 


316       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

shown,  one  inspiration  to  every  four  beats  of  the  heart. 
It  is  very  easy  to  prove  that  the  first  of  these  rhyth 
mical  actions  has  an  intimate  relation  with  the  struc 
ture  of  metrical  compositions.  That  the  form  of 
verse  is  conditioned  by  economy  of  those  muscular 
movements  which  insure  the  oxygenation  of  the  blood 
is  a  fact  which  many  have  acted  on  the  strength  of 
without  knowing  why  they  did  so. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  natural  rate  of  respira 
tion.  Of  1817  individuals  who  were  the  subject  of 
Mr.  Hutchinson's  observations,  "  the  great  majority 
(1731)  breathed  from  sixteen  to  twenty-four  times 
per  minute.  Nearly  a  third  breathed  twenty  times 
per  minute,  a  number  which  may  be  taken  as  the 
average."  a 

The  **  fatal  facility  "  of  the  octosyllabic  measure  has 
often  been  spoken  of,  without  any  reference  to  its  real 
cause.  The  reason  why  eight  syllable  verse  is  so  sin 
gularly  easy  to  read  aloud  is  that  it  follows  more  ex 
actly  than  any  other  measure  the  natural  rhythm  of 
respiration.  In  reading  aloud  in  the  ordinary  way 
from  the  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  from  "  In  Me- 
moriam,"  or  from  "  Hiawatha,"  all  written  in  this 
measure,  the  first  two  in  iambics,  or  short-longs,  the 
last  in  trochaics  or  long-shorts,  it  will  be  found  that 
not  less  than  sixteen  nor  more  than  twenty-four  lines 
will  be  spoken  in  a  minute,  probably  about  twenty.  It 
is  plain,  therefore,  that  if  one  reads  twenty  lines  in  a 
minute,  and  naturally  breathes  the  same  number  of 
times  during  that  minute,  he  will  pronounce  one  line 
to  each  expiration,  taking  advantage  of  the  pause  at 
its  close  for  inspiration.  The  only  effort  required  is 
that  of  vocalizing  and  articulating ;  the  breathing 
•  Flint's  Physiology,  i.  391. 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF   VERSIFICATION.  317 

takes  care  of  itself,  not  even  demanding  a  thought  ex 
cept  where  the  sense  may  require  a  pause  in  the  mid 
dle  of  a  line.  The  very  fault  found  with  these  octo 
syllabic  lines  is  that  they  slip  away  too  fluently,  and 
run  easily  into  a  monotonous  sing-song. 

In  speaking  the  ten  syllable  or  heroic  line,  that  of 
Pope's  Homer,  it  will  be  found  that  about  fourteen 
lines  will  be  pronounced  in  the  minute.  If  a  breath 
is  allowed  to  each  line  the  respiration  will  be  longer 
and  slower  than  natural,  and  a  sense  of  effort  and  fa 
tigue  will  soon  be  the  consequence.  It  will  be  remem 
bered,  however,  that  the  ccesura,  or  pause  in  the 
course  of  the  line,  comes  in  at  irregular  intervals  as  a 
"  breathing-place,"  which  term  is  its  definition  when 
applied  to  music.  This  gives  a  degree  of  relief,  but 
its  management  requires  care  in  reading,  and  it  en 
tirely  breaks  up  the  natural  rhythm  of  breathing. 

The  fourteen  syllable  verse,  that  of  Chapman's 
Homer,  the  common  metre  of  our  hymn-books,  is 
broken  in  reading  into  alternate  lines  of  eight  and 
six  syllables.  This  also  is  exceedingly  easy  reading, 
allowing  a  line  to  each  expiration,  and  giving  time  for 
a  little  longer  rest  than  usual  at  the  close  of  the  six 
syllable  line. 

The  twelve  syllable  line,  that  of  Drayton's  "  Polyol- 
bion,"  is  almost  intolerable,  from  its  essentially  un- 
physiological  construction.  One  can  read  the  ten  sylla 
ble  line  in  a  single  expiration  without  any  considerable 
effort.  One  instinctively  divides  the  fourteen  syllable 
line  so  as  to  accommodate  it  to  the  respiratory  rhythm. 
But  the  twelve  syllable  line  is  too  much  for  one  ex 
piration  and  not  enough  for  two.  For  this  reason, 
doubtless,  it  has  been  instinctively  avoided  by  almost 
all  writers  in  every  period  of  our  literature. 


818    PAGES  FROM  AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIH. 

The  long  measure  of  Tennyson's  "  Maud  "  has  lines 
of  a  length  varying  from  fourteen  to  seventeen  sylla 
bles,  which  are  irregularly  divided  in  reading  for  the 
respiratory  pause.  Where  the  sense  does  not  require  a 
break  at  some  point  of  the  line  we  divide  it  by  accents, 
three  in  each  half,  no  matter  what  the  number  of  syl 
lables  ;  but  the  breaks  which  the  sense  requires  so  in 
terfere  with  the  regularity  of  the  breathing  as  to  inukc 
these  parts  of  "  Maud  "  among  the  most  difficult  verses 
to  read  aloud,  almost  as  difficult  as  the  "  Polyolbion." 

It  may  be  said  that  the  law  of  relation  here  pointed 
out  does  not  apply  to  the  urriting  of  verse,  however  it 
may  be  with  regard  to  reading  or  declaiming  it.  But 
the  early  poems  of  a  people  are  recited  or  sung  before 
they  are  committed  to  writing,  and  even  if  a  versifier 
does  not  read  aloud  as  he  writes,  he  mentally  articu 
lates  every  line,  and  takes  cognizance  instinctively  of 
its  physiological  adjustment  to  respiration  as  he  does 
of  its  smoothness  or  roughness,  which  he  hears  only 
in  imagination. 

The  critical  test  of  poetry  by  the  stop-watch,  and  its 
classification  according  to  its  harmonizing  more  or 
less  exactly  with  a  great  vital  function,  does  not  go 
very  far,  but  it  is  quantitative  and  exactly  scientific  so 
far  as  it  does  go.  The  average  reader  will  find  on 
trial  that  the  results  given  above  are  correct  enough 
to  justify  the  statements  made.  But  here,  as  in  as 
tronomical  observation,  we  must  not  forget  the  per 
sonal  equation.  An  individual  of  ample  chest  and 
quiet  temperament  may  breathe  habitually  only  four 
teen  times  in  a  minute,  and  find  the  heroic,  or  iambic 
pentameter,  —  the  verse  of  Pope's  Homer  and  Gray's 
Elegy,  —  to  correspond  with  his  respiratory  rhythm, 
and  thus  to  be  easier  than  any  other  for  him  to  read, 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF  VERSIFICATION.  319 

A  person  of  narrower  frame  and  more  nervous  habit 
may  breathe  oftener  than  twenty  times  in  a  minute, 
and  find  the  seven  syllable  verse  of  Dyer's  "  Grongar 
Hill "  fits  his  respiration  better  than  the  octosyllables 
of  Scott  or  Tennyson  or  Longfellow.  A  quick-breath 
ing  little  child  will  learn  to  recite  verses  of  two  and 
four  syllables,  like  the  story  of  the  couple  whose  pre 
dilections  in  favor  of  azotized  and  non-azotized  diet 
are  recorded  in  our  nursery  classic,  and  do  it  easily, 
when  it  would  have  to  catch  its  breath  in  the  middle 
of  lines  of  six  or  seven  syllables. 

Nothing  in  poetry  or  in  vocal  music  is  widely  popu 
lar  that  is  not  calculated  with  strict  reference  to  the 
respiratory  function.  All  the  early  ballad  poetry 
shows  how  instinctively  the  reciters  accommodated 
their  rhythm  to  their  breathing.  "  Chevy  Chace  "  or 
"  The  Babes  in  the  Wood  "  may  be  taken  as  an  ex 
ample  for  verse.  "God  save  the  King,"  which  has  a 
compass  of  some  half  a  dozen  notes  and  takes  one 
expiration,  economically  used,  to  each  line,  may  be  re 
ferred  to  as  the  musical  illustration. 

The  unconscious  adaptation  of  voluntary  life  to  the 
organic  rhythm  is  perhaps  a  more  pervading  fact  than 
we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  considering  it.  One  can 
hardly  doubt  that  Spenser  breathed  habitually  more 
slowly  than  Prior,  and  that  Anacreon  had  a  quicker 
respiration  than  Homer.  And  this  difference,  which 
we  conjecture  from  their  rhythmical  instincts,  if  our 
conjecture  is  true,  probably,  almost  certainly,  charac 
terized  all  their  vital  movements. 

It  seems  not  unlikely  that  other  organic  rhythms 
may  be  found  more  or  less  obscurely  hinted  at  in  the 
voluntary  or  animal  functions.  How  far  is  accent 
suggested  by  or  connected  with  the  movement  of  the 


320       PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

pulse,  every  stroke  of  which,  if  it  does  not  lift  the 
brain,  as  Bichat  taught,  sends  a  shock  through  its 
whole  substance,  and  compresses  it  in  its  unyielding 
case  ?  It  is  worth  noting  that  twenty  acts  of  respira 
tion  mean  eighty  arterial  pulsations,  and  that  twenty 
octosyllabic  lines  corresponding  to  these  eighty  pulsa 
tions  have  exactly  eighty  accents.  Again,  then-  is  a 
singular  coincidence  between  the  average  pulsations  of 
the  arteries  and  the  number  of  steps  taken  in  a  min 
ute  ;  and  as  we  hurry  our  steps,  the  heart  hurries  to 
keep  up  with  them.  They  sometimes  correspond  so 
nearly  that  one  is  reminded  of  the  relation  between 
the  steam-chest,  with  its  two  alternately  opening  valves, 
and  the  piston  with  its  corresponding  movements,  as 
we  see  it  in  the  steam-engine.  The  doctrine  of  Bichat 
referred  to  above  has  been  combated  on  the  ground 
that  the  closely  imprisoned  brain  could  not  be  lifted ; 
but  the  forcible  impact  of  the  four  columns  of  arterial 
blood  is  none  the  less  real  in  the  normal  condition 
than  when  the  brain  is  seen  to  be  raised  through  an 
accidental  opening  in  the  skull.  So,  also,  notwith 
standing  the  gradual  equalization  of  the  cardiac  means 
impulse,  this  impulse  must  be  felt  very  extensively 
throughout  the  body.  We  see  that  it  can  lift  a  limb 
through  a  considerable  space  when  we  happen  to  sit 
with  one  leg  crossed  over  the  other.  It  is  by  no  iiicmis 
iinpMssiliK'  that  the  regular  contractions  of  the  heart 
may  have  obscure  relations  with  other  rhythmical 
movements  more  or  less  exactly  synchronous  with  tin-M 
own  ;  that  our  accents  and  our  gestures  get  their  first 
impulse  from  the  cardiac  stroke  which  they  repeat  in 
visible  or  audible  form.  In  these  funeral  marches 
which  our  hearts  are  beating,  we  may  often  keep  step 
to  the  cardiac  systole  more  nearly  than  our  poet  su»- 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF   VERSIFICATION.  321 

pected.  But  these  are  only  suggestions  to  be  consid 
ered  and  tested ;  the  relations  of  verse  to  the  respira 
tory  rhythm  will  be  easily  verified  and  extended  by 
any  who  may  care  to  take  the  trouble. 


CRIME  AND  AUTOMATISM. 

WITH   A   NOTICE   OF   M.    PROSPER   DESPINE's   "  P8YCHOLOOIE 
NATURELLE." 

THE  occurrence  among  us  within  the  last  few  years 
of  crimes  of  singular  atrocity  and  wanton  cruelty  has 
called  the  attention  of  many  thinking  persons  to  the 
condition  of  mind  under  which  such  acts  are  commit 
ted.  A  fellow-creature  at  whose  deeds  a  whole  com 
munity  shudders,  while  he  himself,  even  after  they 
have  been  brought  home  to  him,  looks  upon  them  with 
entire  indifference,  must  have  a  moral  nature  very  un 
like  that  of  ordinary  human  beings.  Nothing  is  more 
difficult  than  to  study  such  a  being  fairly.  Instinct, 
Law,  and  Theology  have  all  taken  up  their  positions 
with  reference  to  him. 

Instinct  urges  the  common  mind  to  swift,  certain, 
and  extreme  measures.  As  the  serpent  when  he  is 
trodden  on  strikes,  as  the  man  who  is  smitten  returns 
the  blow  as  if  he  were  a  machine  of  which  the  spring 
is  suddenly  released,  so  a  popular  gathering  executes 
prompt  vengeance  on  the  doer  of  an  atrocious  deed, 
where  law  does  not  stand  between  him  and  the  in 
stinct  of  the  multitude.  If  lynch-law  knew  enough  to 
have  a  Latin  motto  for  its  symbol,  it  would  be  cito, 
certe,  sceve.  It  listens  to  no  argument,  for  it  is  very 
little  more  than  a  mere  animal  movement.  One  might 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  323 

as  well  reason  with  a  she-bear  from  whom  he  had 
stolen  her  cubs,  as  with  a  border  mob  dragging  a  mur 
derer  to  the  nearest  tree.  "  Why,  what  evil  hath  he 
done  ?  "  was  Pilate's  very  fair  question  to  the  roughs 
of  Jerusalem.  "  Crucify  him  !  "  was  all  the  answer 
he  got.  Instinct,  whether  we  call  its  rulings  natural 
justice  or  natural  injustice,  has  its  place,  none  the 
less,  in  settling  the  character  and  determining  the 
punishment  of  crime.  It  rids  society  of  a  nuisance  or 
subjects  the  offender  to  a  cautionary  discipline.  It 
strengthens  the  abhorrence  of  crime  in  a  community, 
and  to  some  extent  deters  those  who  are  ill-disposed 
from  carrying  out  their  inclinations.  But  it  makes 
mistakes  about  persons,  it  gratifies  dangerous  passions 
in  those  who  execute  its  mandates,  and  it  has  no  grad 
uated  scale  of  punishment.  A  la  lanterne  is  its  short 
est,  most  frequent,  and  very  convenient  formula.  Civ 
ilization  may  hide  it  more  or  less  completely  under 
statutes  and  moral  and  religious  precepts,  but  it  lies 
as  a  struggling  force  beneath  their  repressive  weight, 
and  every  now  and  then  betrays  itself  in  the  court 
room  and  even  in  the  sanctuary. 

Law  is  an  implement  of  society  which  is  intended 
for  every-day  work.  It  is  a  coarse  tool  and  not  a  math 
ematical  instrument.  It  deals  with  the  acts  of  crim 
inals  and  their  immediate  motives.  Its  efforts  to  get 
behind  these  proximate  causes  are  not  very  satisfac 
tory  to  those  who  have  made  a  special  study  of  the 
mechanism  of  human  actions.  It  arraigned  men  for 
merly  because  the  devil  had  prompted  them  to  kill 
their  fellow-man.  Not  being  able  to  hang  the  devil, 
it  followed  the  Hudibrastic  method  and  swung  off  his 
victims  as  a  substitute.  It  does  indeed  recognize  com 
plete  mental  alienation  as  an  excuse  of  forbidden  acts, 


324   PAGES  FROM  AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LI  KM. 

and  heat  of  passion  as  their  palliation.  But  while  it 
accepts  the  chemist's  analysis  of  the  contents  of  a 
stomach,  it  cares  very  little  for  a  psychologist's  analy 
sis  of  a  criminal's  mental  and  moral  elements,  unless 
this  criminal  can  be  shown  to  present  the  technical 
conditions  of  the  state  defined  as  insanity.  Its  scale  of 
punishments  is  graduated  in  a  rough  way,  but  it  has 
no  fixed  standard  except  the  hanging  point.  Instinct, 
tradition,  convenience,  in  various  combinations  and 
changing  from  age  to  age,  settle  the  marks  on  the 
scale  below  this  highest  level,  which  itself  is  only  con 
ditionally  fixed,  and  changes  in  different  times  and 
places,  so  that  in  some  communities  crime  never  reaches 
it.  Of  relative  justice  law  may  know  something ;  of 
expediency  it  knows  much;  with  absolute  justice  it 
does  not  concern  itself. 

Theology^  as  represented  in  the  formulae  of  its  coun 
cils  and  synods,  while  nominally  treating  of  divinity, 
has  chiefly  contemplated  the  divine  character  in  its  re 
lations  to  man,  and  consequently,  inverting  its  thought, 
has  become  little  more  than  traditional  anthropology. 
Deriving  its  warrant,  or  claiming  to,  from  the  supreme 
source  of  law,  it  has  transferred  the  whole  subject  of 
moral  transgression  from  the  region  of  the  natural  to 
that  of  the  supernatural.  It  lent  the  devil  to  the  law 
yers  to  help  out  their  indictments.  It  comes  with  its 
accepted  axioms  about  human  nature  to  confound  the 
studies  of  the  philosopher.  Measuring  the  finite  by 
an  infinite  standard,  it  abolishes  all  terms  of  compari 
son.  Testing  all  humanity  in  the  scholastic  vacuum 
left  by  pumping  out  the  whole  moral  atmosphere,  it 
sees  two  souls,  one  freighted  with  the  burden  of  four 
score  guilty  years,  the  other  chargeable  only  with  the 
lightest  petulance  of  pulpy  infancy,  drop  with  the 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  325 

same  swiftness  into  the  abyss  of  boundless  and  end 
less  retribution,  just  as  the  feather  and  the  guinea 
fall  side  by  side  in  an  exhausted  bell  glass  and  reach 
the  bottom  at  the  same  moment.  Accepting  the  me 
chanical  idea  of  transferable  moral  responsibility,  it 
violates  the  plain  law  of  homology,  which  declares 
that  like  must  be  compared  with  like,  that  virtue  con- 
not  be  meted  out  with  a  yard-stick,  that  courage  can 
not  be  measured  in  a  pint  pot  (though  sometimes 
found  in  it),  that  a  right  or  wrong  act  cannot  be 
weighed  in  a  grocer's  balance.  Theological  specula 
tion  has  thus  climbed  out  of  sight  of  the  facts  of  hu 
man  nature,  to  find  itself 

"  Pinnacled  dim  in  the  intense  inane," 

anil  the  anthropologist  of  to-day  must  request  it  to 
stand  aside,  as  the  geologist  of  yesterday  has  done 
with  the  old  cosmogonies. 

In  the  face  of  all  these  obstacles,  the  subject  of 
crime  and  the  character  of  the  criminal  must  be 
studied  calmly,  exhaustively,  and  independently  of  all 
inherited  prejudices.  The  idols  of  the  market,  of  the 
bench,  and  of  the  pulpit  must  be  treated  as  so  many 
stocks  and  stones  by  the  naturalist  who  comes  to  the 
study  of  man  as  Huber  gave  himself  to  the  study  of 
bees,  or  Agassiz  to  that  of  tortoises.  Savage  instincts, 
barbarous  usages,  ancient  beliefs,  will  all  find  them 
selves  confronted  with  a  new  order  of  facts  which  has 
not  been  studied,  and  with  new  interpretations  of  facts 
which  have  never  been  hazarded. 

Every  novel  growth  of  ideas  has  to  encounter  the 
weight  of  vested  opinions  and  mortgaged  prejudices. 
It  has  to  face  a  society  more  or  less  unprepared  for 
it;  the  Chinese  with  their  fixed  customs,  the  North 


326        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

American  Indians  with  their  feral  natures,  are  not  in 
a  condition  to  listen  to  the  last  revelations  of  that 
multiple  Messiah,  modern  civilization,  as  it  speaks 
through  its  anointed  races.  The  Pi-Utes  and  the 
Kickapoos  of  the  wilderness  are  hard  to  reason  with. 
But  there  is  another  tribe  of  irreclaimables,  living  in 
much  larger  wigwams  and  having  all  the  look  of  civil 
ized  people,  which  is  quite  as  intractable  to  the  teach 
ings  of  a  new  philosophy  that  upsets  their  ancestral 
totems.  This  is  the  tribe  of  the  Pooh-Poohs,  so  called 
from  the  leading  expression  of  their  vocabulary,  which 
furnishes  them  a  short  and  easy  method  of  disposing 
of  all  novel  doctrines,  discoveries  and  inventions  of  a 
character  to  interfere  with  their  preconceived  notions. 
They  may  possibly  serve  a  useful  purpose,  like  other 
barbarous  and  semi-barbarous  human  beings,  by  help 
ing  to  keep  down  the  too  prolific  family  of  noxious  or 
troublesome  animals,  —  the  thinking,  or  rather  talk 
ing  and  writing  ones.  Beyond  this  they  are  of  small 
value  ;  and  they  are  always  retreating  before  the  ad 
vance  of  knowledge,  facing  it,  and  moving  backwards, 
still  opposing  the  leaders  and  the  front  rank  with  their 
inextinguishable  war-cry,  Pooh-Pooh !  But  the  most 
obstinate  of  them  all  can  scarcely  fail  to  recognize 
that  the  issues  of  to-day  really  turn  on  points  which 
within  easy  remembrance  would  hardly  have  been  con 
sidered  open  to  discussion  except  in  proscribed  circles. 
In  place  of  the  question  of  the  Deity's  foreknowl 
edge  as  limiting  human  freedom,  we  have  under  discus 
sion  the  statistician's  tables  showing  that  the  seeming 
contingencies  of  what  we  call  voluntary  action  are  so 
much  matters  of  certainty  that  they  can  be  confidently 
predicted.  So  many  persons,  of  such  and  such  ages 
and  sexes,  will,  within  a  given  district  and  within  a 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  327 

given  time,  commit  suicide  by  such  and  such  methods, 
distributed  according  to  their  age  and  sex.  So  many 
children  will  die  within  the  same  district  and  period 
from  drinking  hot  water  out  of  the  spouts  of  tea 
kettles.  In  other  words,  will,  like  weather,  obeys  def 
inite  laws.  The  wind,  be  it  not  irreverently  spoken, 
by  no  means  literally  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  but 
where  it  must,  as  certain  precedent  conditions  have 
settled  the  question  for  it,  and  we  know  every  morn 
ing  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth.  No  priest 
or  soothsayer  that  ever  lived  could  hold  his  own 
against  Old  Probabilities.  The  will,  like  the  wind,  is 
anything  but  fre&;  it  is  so  largely  governed  by  or 
ganic  conditions  and  surrounding  circumstances  that 
we  calculate  upon  it  as  on  sunrise,  and  all  the  provi 
sions  are  made  for  its  anticipated  decisions,  as  those 
minute  habiliments,  mysterious  and  manifold,  are  got 
ready  beforehand  for  an  expected  little  stranger. 

In  place  of  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  in  virtue 
of  which  certain  individuals  were  to  become  or  remain 
subjects  of  wrath,  we  are  discussing  organic  tendencies, 
inborn  idiosyncrasies,  which,  so  far  as  they  go,  are 
purely  mechanical,  and  are  the  best  excuse  that  can  be 
pleaded  for  a  human  being,  exempting  him  from  all 
moral  responsibility  when  they  reach  a  certain  extreme 
degree,  and  exculpating  him  just  so  far  as  they  are  un 
controllable,  or  unenlightened  by  any  moral  sense. 

We  hear  comparatively  little  of  that  "  original  sin  " 
which  made  man  ex  offitio  a  culprit  and  a  rebel,  and 
liable  to  punishment  as  such.  But  we  have  whole 
volumes  on  hereditary  instincts  of  all  kinds,  sometimes 
in  the  direction  of  the  worst  crimes,  and  the  more  of 
this  kind  of  original  sin  we  find  in  a  man,  the  more  we 
are  disposed  to  excuse  his  evil  deeds. 


328       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

"While  our  catechisms  are  still  charging  man  \\itli 
the  responsibility  of  "evil,"  including  suffering  and 
death,  our  text-books  are  inferring  from  the  material 
record  of  the  earth's  strata  that  it  existed  in  the  form 
of  violence,  disease,  and  destruction  of  life,  long  be 
fore  man  or  beings  like  man  existed  on  our  planet. 

In  place  of  following  or  combating  the  theorists 
who  consider  this  world  as  an  intermediate  peniten 
tiary  adjusted  for  the  discipline  of  souls  that  have 
sinned  in  a  previous  state  (E.  Beecher),  or  who  main 
tain  that  it  was  contrived  beforehand  to  accord  in  its 
discords  with  "  the  miracle  of  sin  "  (Bushnell),  we  have 
to  fight  for  or  against  the  iconoclastic  doctrines  of  the 
evolutionists. 

In  place  of  considering  man  as  a  creature  so  utterly 
perverted  from  birth  that  the  poles  of  his  nature  must 
be  reversed,  the  tendency  is  to  look  upon  him  rather 
as  subject  to  attractions  and  repulsions  which  are  to 
be  taken  advantage  of  in  education.  As  he  does  not 
give  himself  these  attractions  and  repulsions,  but  re 
ceives  them  through  natural  parentage,  nor  educate 
himself,  but  lies  at  the  mercy  of  his  conditions,  the 
tendency  is,  again,  to  limit  the  range  of  his  moral  re 
sponsibilities. 

In  place  of  debating  upon  the  forfeits  of  criminals 
to  society,  philosophers  and  philanthropists  are  chiefly 
occupying  themselves  with  the  duties  of  society  to  crim 
inals. 

At  the  bottom  of  all  the  more  prevalent  thought  of 
the  time  is  the  conviction  that  there  is  not  enough  in 
the  history  of  humanity  to  account  for  the  suffering 
which  we  are  forced  to  witness,  and  that  the  hardest 
task  of  those  who  think  and  feel  is  that  which  Milton 
set  himself  - 

"  To  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  329 

All  these  newer  modes  of  thought  are  to  a  large 
extent  outgrowths  of  what  we  may  call  physiological 
psychology.  The  foundations  of  this  were  laid  in 
those  studies  of  individual  character  made  by  the 
phrenologists,  much  in  the  same  way  that  the  founda 
tions  of  chemistry  were  laid  by  the  alchemists.  In  the 
pursuit  of  an  unattainable  end,  and  in  the  midst  of 
great  hallucinations,  they  made  those  observations  and 
discoveries  which,  divorced  from  their  fancies  and  the 
ories,  lent  themselves  to  the  building  up  of  a  true 
science. 

But  the  development  of  the  connection  of  motive 
and  determination  has  been,  in  the  main,  an  expansion 
of  the  doctrine  of  reflex  action.  This  doctrine,  which 
started  from  the  fact  of  the  twitching  of  a  decapitated 
frog's  hind  legs,  has  grown  to  such  dimensions  that 
it  claims  to  solve  some  of  the  gravest  questions  in 
psychology,  and  to  deal,  in  the  face  of  the  great  en 
dowed  and  incorporated  beliefs,  with  the  most  serious 
problems  of  responsibility  and  retribution. 

Following  the  idea  of  Descartes,  who  considered  all 
the  lower  animals  as  only  living  machines,  and  man 
himself  .as  a  machine  with  a  superadded  spiritual  es 
sence,  we  may  glance  a  moment  at  the  movements  of 
the  human  mechanism.  Circulation,  secretion,  and 
nutrition  go  on  in  health  without  our  consent  or  knowl 
edge.  The  heart's  action  is  felt  occasionally,  but  can 
not  be  controlled  by  a  direct  act  of  the  will.  The  res 
piration  is  often  perceived  and  partially  under  the 
influence  of  the  will,  but  for  the  most  part  unnoticed 
and  involuntary.  Passing  to  what  we  call  the  volun 
tary  movements,  we  find  that  even  when  they  obey  our 
wishes  the  special  actions  which  conspire  to  produce 
the  effect  wished  for  are  neither  ordered  nor  taken  dis- 


830       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

tinct  cognizance  of.  Nothing  shows  this  more  clearly 
than  the  voice.  Its  tones  and  character,  varying  with 
the  state  of  mind  and  feeling,  are  regulated  by  the 
nicest  adjustments  of  a  system  of  delicate  antagoniz 
ing  muscles,  the  very  existence  of  which  would  never 
be  suspected  but  for  the  researches  of  the  anatomist. 
Sudden  and  sharp  sensations  produce  involuntary 
movements  of  voluntary  muscles.  By  a  similar  me 
chanical  connection  different  impressions  produce  their 
corresponding  emotions  and  ideas.  These  again  pro 
duce  other  ideas  and  emotions  by  a  mechanism  over 
which  we  have  only  a  partial  control.  We  cannot  al 
ways  command  the  feelings  of  disgust,  pity,  anger,  con 
tempt,  excited  in  us  by  certain  presentations  to  our 
consciousness.  We  cannot  always  arrest  or  change 
the  train  of  thoughts  which  is  keeping  us  awake,  how 
ever  much  we  may  long  to  do  so.  Now  the  observa 
tion  of  certain  exceptional  natures  tends  to  show  that 
a  very  large  portion  of  their  apparent  self-determina 
tions  or  voluntary  actions,  such  as  we  consider  that  we 
should  hold  ourselves  responsible  for,  are  in  reality 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  reflex  movements,  auto 
matic  consequences  of  practically  irresistible  causes  ex 
isting  in  the  inherited  organization  and  in  preceding 
conditions. 

It  is  to  a  comparatively  recent  work,  which  treats 
of  these  subjects  from  a  new  point  of  view,  namely,  the 
study  of  the  mental  and  moral  conditions  of  individual 
criminals,  that  the  reader's  attention  is  now  called. 
The  slight  analysis  will  itself  furnish  the  text  of  a 
running  comment.  It  will  not,  of  course,  be  inferred 
that  the  critic  always  agrees  with  or  is  responsible  for 
the  author's  statements  or  opinions.  Neither  should 
the  reader  suppose  that  all  the  facts  or  opinions  cited 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  831 

from  the  work  are  entirely  original  in  the  author. 
Many  things,  on  the  contrary,  in  this,  as  in  every  such 
work,  are  commonplaces  to  all  who  have  studied  its 
subject. 

In  the  year  1868,  M.  Prosper  Despine,  Doctor  of 
Medicine,  gave  to  the  public  three  large  volumes  in 
which  the  psychology  or  mental  mechanism  of  crime 
is  studied  from  nature.  The  first  volume  expounds  his 
general  doctrine  as  to  the  motives  of  human  action, 
and  the  degree  to  which  they  are  ordered  by  the  will 
or  simply  automatic.  The  second  volume  begins  with 
the  consideration  of  mental  alienation  and  imbecility, 
and  passes  to  the  description  and  illustration  of  moral 
insanity  and  idiocy  as  seen  in  criminals.  Then  follow 
clinical  observations,  as  they  may  be  called,  upon  par 
ricides  and  homicides.  The  third  volume  studies  the 
mental  and  moral  conditions  of  infanticides,  suicides, 
incendiaries,  robbers,  and  others  belonging  to  the  crim 
inal  class.  This  quasi-medical  study  of  criminals  is 
followed  by  an  attempt  to  lay  down  the  proper  moral 
treatment  to  which  they  should  be  submitted. 

M.  Despine's  own  abstract,  or  his  analytical  head 
ings  of  his  chapters,  would  exceed  the  limits  of  this 
article.  It  will  be  expedient,  instead  of  following 
these,  to  give  a  more  general  view  of  the  drift  and 
method  of  the  book. 

And  first,  though  the  author  alludes  to  the  difficulty 
with  which  new  doctrines  get  a  hearing,  though  he 
evokes  the  injured  and  somewhat  weary  ghosts  of  Co 
pernicus  and  Galileo,  he  begins  with  an  expression  of 
reverential  feeling.  Science  represents  the  thought  of 
God  discovered  by  man.  By  learning  the  natural  laws 
he  attaches  effects  to  their  first  cause,  the  will  of  the 
Creator. 


332        PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

M.  Despine  had  been  struck  with  the  absence  of 
emotion  (sang  froid}  which  appears  as  so  frequent  a 
trait  in  criminals.  This  set  him  to  studying  their  psy 
chological  history,  and  for  that  purpose  he  ransacked 
the  "  Gazette  des  Tribunaux "  from  the  year  1825 
until  the  time  of  writing,  to  study  the  cases  there  re 
corded,  exactly  as  a  physician  studies  a  similar  record 
of  bodily  diseases.  Out  of  this  clinical  study  came 
his  ideas  about  crime  and  criminals,  and  working  his 
way  backwards  into  general  psychology  he  arrived  at 
the  conclusions  which  he  has  unfolded  in  his  first  vol 
ume. 

The  instincts,  or  natural  desires,  are  the  great 
springs  of  human  action.  The  perfection  of  man 
consists  in  the  perfection  of  the  instinctive  faculties, 
and  these  again  are  determined  by  the  organization  of 
the  brain,  their  instrument.  Studying  the  races  of 
mankind  in  succession,  the  author  finds  in  each  inher 
ent  and  characteristic  differences,  which  belong  to  it 
as  much  as  its  stature,  color,  and  other  outward  char 
acteristics.  So  in  individuals,  and  in  their  different 
conditions  relative  to  sex,  age,  state  of  health  or  dis 
ease,  and  other  variable  circumstances,  he  finds  a  wide 
range  of  diversities.  A  man  who  had  always  been 
amiable  and  affectionate  became  exceedingly  irritable 
and  quarrelsome  after  an  attack  of  small-pox,  and  re 
tained  this  character  fourteen  years  later,  when  he  was 
the  subject  of  the  observation.  A  profligate  men 
tioned  by  Plutarch  had  a  fall  and  struck  his  head, 
after  which  accident  he  became  a  most  virtuous  cit 
izen. 

In  studying  the  criminal  we  wish  to  know  ho\v  far 
he  is  such  in  virtue  of  his  own  free  act.  As  the  doc 
trine  which  M.  Despine  teaches  might  be  mi.sintcr- 


CRIME   AND    AUTOMATISM.  333 

preted  to  mean  more  than  he  intends,  his  own  state 
ment  of  his  position  may  be  here  introduced :  "  Al 
though  I  have  demonstrated  the  very  small  part  taken 
by  free-will  in  the  performance  of  human  actions,  I 
have  not  hesitated  to  proclaim  still  more  emphatically 
that  no  one  has  more  fully  recognized  and  proved  the 
existence  of  this  power  than  myself."  M.  Despine 
cannot  therefore  be  reproached  with  either  atheism  or 
fatalism. 

His  test  of  free-will,  or  self-determination,  is  the 
sense  of  effort  by  which  a  desire  is  overcome,  and  the 
self-approval  or  self-reproach  which  follows  a  right  or 
wrong  action.  But  desire  is  only  overcome  by  the 
sense  of  duty.  Where  this  does  not  intervene  there 
is  nothing  to  hinder  the  strongest  desire  from  having 
its  own  way  ;  there  is  no  occasion  for  effort.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  man  is  as  much  a  machine  as 
the  new-born  babe,  which  has  no  choice,  but  simply 
obeys  the  impulse  of  its  desires.  There  is  no  struggle 
between  desire  and  the  sense  of  duty  before  the  com 
mission  of  a  crime,  and  no  remorse  after  it,  in  persons 
destitute  of  the  moral  instinct. 

Nothing,  then,  is  in  the  way  of  the  selfish  motive 
which  leads  to  crime  except  some  stronger  selfish  mo 
tive,  as  fear,  for  instance.  Crime  will  be  like  our 
ordinary  every-day  acts,  without  moral  character  and 
without  moral  responsibility.  A  careful  study  of 
criminals  shows  that  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases 
they  are  devoid  of  the  ordinary  moral  instincts ;  that 
they  have  no  struggle  beforehand  except  of  purely 
selfish  principles,  that  they  have  no  true  remorse  for 
their  guilt,  and  that  their  apparent  repentance  is  noth 
ing  but  fear  of  the  future  suffering  with  which  they 
are  threatened.  These  offenders  against  the  laws  of 


334       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

society  are  moral  idiots ;  their  "  crime  "  is  not  a  sin 
any  more  than  eating  or  drinking  or  the  satisfaction  of 
any  other  natural  desire.  Our  impressions  about  their 
mental  conditions  are  mostly  mere  reflections  of  what 
we  think  would  be  our  own  feelings.  Contrast  the 
two  following  extracts,  the  first  from  Burton's  "  Anat 
omy  of  Melancholy,"  the  second  from  M.  Despine. 

"  Peter  in  his  bonds  slept  secure,  for  he  knew  God 
protected  him,  and  Tully  makes  it  an  argument  of 
Hoscius  Amerinus*  innocency  that  he  killed  not  his 
father,  because  he  FX>  securely  slept." 

u  How  far  from  the  reality  presented  by  facts  to  the 
idea  which  moralists  and  poets  have  formed  of  the 
criminal !  *  The  tiger  tears  his  prey  and  sleeps ;  man 
becomes  a  homicide  and  is  sleepless,'  says  Chateau 
briand,  taking  for  granted  an  impossibility,  namely, 
that  the  criminal  is  endowed  with  the  sentiments  which 
make  man  a  moral  being.  But  the  observer  who 
studies  the  facts  relating  to  the  sleep  of  criminals  has 
an  opinion  directly  opposite  to  that  of  the  poet.  '  Noth 
ing  more  nearly  resembles  the  sleep  of  the  just  than 
the  sleep  of  the  assassin,'  said,  in  1867,  Maitre  Guerin, 
the  courrieriste  of  the  "  Monde  lUustrd,"  speaking  of 
an  individual  who,  after  committing  a  horrible,  pre 
meditated  murder,  lay  down  tranquilly  and  slumbered 
soundly." 

"  I  slept  sound  till  three  o'clock,  awaked  and  writ 
these  lines:  — 

"  Come,  pleasing  rest,  eternal  slumber  fall, 
Seal  mine,  that  once  must  seal  the  eyes  of  all ; 
Calm  and  composed  my  soul  her  journey  takes, 
No  guilt  that  troubles,  and  no  heart  that  aches  " — 

Thus  wrote  Eugene  Aram  on  the  night  before  he  was 
hanged. 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  335 

The  moral  sense  may  be  paralyzed  for  the  moment, 
and  its  voice  silenced  by  passion.  In  this  condition  a 
man  may  do  a  great  wrong,  use  the  most  unmeasured 
language,  or  commit  the  most  violent  acts,  without 
any  thought  of  their  evil  nature.  He  is  completely 
blinded,  and  his  conduct  is  involuntary,  because  it  is 
not  combated  by  his  moral  sense.  There  is  no  strug 
gle  in  the  consciousness,  and  without  this  struggle 
there  is,  the  author  maintains,  no  proper  exercise  of 
free-will.  When  a  man  in  a  certain  extremity  of  pas 
sion  strikes  another,  M.  Despine  would  recognize  no 
more  self-determining  agency  in  what  he  does  than  he 
would  in  the  involuntary  movement  by  which  one 
withdraws  his  hand  from  the  accidental  contact  with  a 
heated  iron. 

M.  Despine's  doctrine  as  to  the  passions  is  a  reas- 
sertion  and  a  philosophical  expansion  of  the  epigram 
matic  saying  of  Horace,  Ira  furor  brevis  est :  Anger 
—  more  generally,  passion  —  is  an  insanity  of  short 
duration. 

A  man,  the  author  says,  ought  to  bear  everything 
rather  than  do  wrong.  But  it  is  not  in  a  man's  power, 
he  adds,  to  bear  everything ;  some  things  are  too  much 
for  the  forces  with  which  nature  has  endowed  him. 
We  must,  if  we  would  not  be  unjust  and  cruel,  allow 
for  the  existence  of  special  moral  impossibilities, 
which  differ  greatly  in  different  individuals  in  virtue  of 
the  instinctive  impulses  peculiar  to  each.  The  exist 
ence  of  such  moral  impossibilities  can  only  be  denied 
by  persons  whose  nature  is  such  that  they  can  know 
nothing  of  them  by  their  own  experience. 

To  recapitulate  his  leading  ideas' in  his  own  lan 
guage  :  "  The  sense  of  duty  being  a  necessary  condi 
tion  for  the  exercise  of  free-will,  it  becomes  evident 


336         PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

that  one  who  does  not  possess  the  moral  sense,  or  who 
has  lost  it  for  the  moment  in  a  state  of  passion,  is  de 
prived  of  free-will,  of  moral  liberty,  and  is  not  morally 
responsible  for  his  wrong-doings :  if  he  commits  any 
evil  deeds,  it  is  because  the  desire  which  prompts  him 
to  commit  them  is  stronger  than  the  innocent  selfish 
desires  which  would  lead  him  in  another  direction,  and 
where  selfish  desires  alone  exist,  whatever  may  be 
their  character,  as  they  are  not  matters  of  choice,  the 
strongest  always  prevail  over  the  weaker  ones,  by  the 
action  of  a  natural  law." 

In  short  it  is  evident  that  the  author  substitutes 
mental  automatic  action  for  exercise  of  the  will  in  the 
very  cases  commonly  thought  to  involve  the  largest 
amount  of  responsibility,  as  implying  the  greatest 
amount  of  guilty  volition.  Instinct  with  its  horror  of 
cold-blooded,  remorseless  acts  of  cruelty,  Law  with 
its  penalties  roughly  graduated  in  the  ratio  of  the  in- 
veterate  malignity  of  the  outrage,  Theology  with  its 
deadly  sins  in  distinction  from  venial  offences,  are  all 
squarely  met  with  the  statement,  professedly  derived 
from  a  careful  study  of  the  facts  as  shown  in  the  his 
tory  of  criminals,  that  the  most  frightful  crimes,  com 
mitted  without  a  sign  of  compunction,  and  leaving  not 
a  shadow  of  regret,  are  without  any  moral  character 
whatever ;  from  which  it  follows  that  the  unfortunate 
subject  of  moral  idiocy  is  just  as  innocently  acting  out 
the  tendencies  he  inherits  as  the  rattlesnake,  which  we 
hate  by  instinct,  which  we  extirpate  through  legisla 
tion  if  necessary,  which  we  take  as  a  type  of  evil  in 
our  theologies,  but  which  is  just  as  much  a  poor,  de 
pendent,  not  ill-meaning  citizen  of  the  universe,  as  the 
lamb  and  the  dove,  which  are  our  most  sacred  sym 
bols. 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  337 

There  is  nothing  absolutely  new  in  this  doctrine. 
Reid  compared  the  condition  of  the  man  destitute  of 
that  inner  light  which  gives  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong  to  that  of  the  blind  man  with  reference  to  col 
ors.  When  Dr.  Reid  wrote,  "  Daltonism  "  had  not 
been  described.  It  was  not  generally  known  that 
many  men  are  from  their  birth  unable  to  distinguish, 
between  certain  colors,  green  and  red  for  instance. 
So,  too,  when  he  wrote,  the  condition  corresponding 
to  the  term  "moral  insanity"  was  not  distinctly  rec 
ognized.  Careful  observation  has  revealed  the  fre 
quent  existence  of  Daltonism,  and  M.  Despine's  book 
is  mainly  a  collection  of  observations  and  studies  to 
show  that  moral  Daltonism,  or  partial  mental  blind 
ness,  though  Instinct,  Law,  and  Theology  have  gener 
ally  overlooked  it,  is  of  frequent  occurrence.  "  Blood 
reddens  the  pavement,  —  that 's  all,"  said  a  would-be 
murderer  who  had  just  missed  killing  his  man  and 
regretted  his  failure.  "  Cut  my  head  off  or  send  me 
to  the  galleys,  I  don't  care  which ;  but  I  'm  sorry  I 
did  n't  kill  him."  To  the  lamp-post,  shouts  lynch-law ; 
Full  term  of  imprisonment,  pronounces  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  ;  Bound  for  perdition,  exclaims  the  Priest.  A 
moral  idiot,  says  M.  Despine ;  take  him  up  tenderly 
(to  the  constable)  ;  treat  him  gently,  for  he  is  an  un 
fortunate  brother  entitled  to  a  double  share  of  pity 
as  suffering  under  the  gravest  of  inherited  calamities. 

This  congenital  want  of  moral  sense  shows  itself 
very  early.  M.  Despine  quotes  largely  from  a  writer 
in  the  "  Gazette  des  Hopitaux  "  on  Children  as  Sub 
jects  of  the  Law.  He  recognizes  a  large  class  of  chil 
dren  characterized  by  their  physical  development,  to 
whom  education  seems  of  no  use,  and  on  whom  the  or 
dinary  motives  to  good  action  are  thrown  away.  These 


838       PAGES  FROM   AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

children  constitute  the  infant  school  of  crime,  for  out 
of  this  class  come  the  great  majority  of  adult  crim 
inals. 

We  need  not  follow  M.  Despine  through  the  moro 
or  less  detailed  histories  of  crime  and  criminals.  Such 
accounts  are  commonly  sought  for  by  readers  fond  of 
lively  sensations,  and  there  is  enough  of  the  exciting 
element  to  afford  this  vulgar  interest.  But  while  it  is 
impossible  to  read  about  the  famous  criminals  here 
mentioned  without  recognizing  a  certain  melodramatic 
fascination  in  their  stories,  these  are  not  told  with  any 
such  aim,  but  always  to  get  at  the  mechanism  of  crime, 
the  mental  and  moral  conditions,  so  different  from 
those  of  the  student  who  is  trying  to  analyze  them, 
under  which  the  criminals  acted. 

A  few  of  the  more  obvious  predisposing  causes  of 
moral  insensibility  may  be  briefly  referred  to.  Many 
criminals  come  from  families  in  which  insanity  pre 
vails,  in  some  of  its  common  forms,  and  in  many  of 
them  it  either  exists  at  the  time  the  act  considered 
as  a  crime  was  committed,  or  declares  itself  afterwards. 
—  In  the  collection  of  casts  at  the  Medical  College  in 
Boston  is  one  taken  from  the  face  of  a  toothless  old 
creature  who  died  insane  at  La  Salpetrie're,  —  the  old 
woman's  hospital  of  Paris.  These  were  once  the  fea 
tures  of  the  famous  The'roigne  de  Me*ricourt,  "  La  belle 
Lidgoise,"  the  beautiful  fury  who  headed  the  Parisian 
mob  which  brought  back  the  royal  family  from  Ver 
sailles  to  Paris.  It  is  probable  that  in  cases  like  this 
a  less  degree  of  the  mental  perversion,  which  after 
wards  became  recognized  as  insanity,  already  existed 
while  the  subject  of  it  was  noted  only  for  violence  or 
eccentricity  of  conduct. 

Age  is  a  notable  factor  in  the  production  of  moral 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  339 

obliquities.  Thus  incendiarism  is  a  specialty  of  young 
persons  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  twenty-five  years. 
There  is  no  large  community  which  cannot  furnish  ex 
amples  of  young  children  who  had  an  irresistible  ten 
dency  to  set  fire  to  anything  that  would  make  a  good 
blaze.  Of  this  state  of  mind  M.  Despine  says :  "  The 
neuropathic  tendency  which  produces  the  incendiary 
passion  not  infrequently  gives  rise  to  hallucinations, 
and  these  have  commonly  a  relation  to  the  prevailing 
passion.  Thus  the  person  hears  voices  that  cry  to  him, 
Burn  !  Burn !  "  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  similar 
"  neuropathic  "  conditions  account  for  other  obliqui 
ties  of  conduct  chiefly  observed  in  children  and  ado 
lescents. 

Sex  shows  itself  in  the  extraordinary  moral  perver 
sions  of  hysteria.  In  a  case  adjudged  at  Berne,  in 
1864,  a  married  woman  accused  herself  falsely,  under 
the  influence  of  hallucination,  of  lying  and  theft,  of 
infidelity  to  her  marriage  vows,  and  called  herself  the 
assassin  of  her  husband. 

Intoxication  suspends  the  influence  of  the  will,  and 
turns  the  subject  of  it  into  an  automaton  not  prop 
erly  responsible  for  his  actions,  excepting  when  he 
drinks  to  fit  himself  for  the  execution  of  a  criminal 
purpose.  M.  Despine  gives  a  lamentable  picture  of 
the  habits  of  many  of  his  countrymen.  The  abuse  of 
alcohol  is  a  scourge  growing  worse  all  the  time.  In  the 
army,  according  to  General  Trochu's  report,  the  old  sol 
diers  have  by  no  means  the  value  generally  attributed 
to  them,  on  account  of  the  great  prevalence  of  drinking 
habits  among  them.  Absinthe  comes  in  for  its  denun 
ciation.  For  the  last  ten  years,  says  a  writer  whom 
M.  Despine  quotes,  this  strange  drink  has  been  sought 
after  with  the  same  passion  that  opium  is  in  China. 


340        PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

"  If  during  the  warm  season  one  will  walk  along  the 
boulevards  between  the  hours  of  four  and  six  in  the  aft 
ernoon,  he  will  be  surprised  to  see  what  an  incalcula 
ble  number  of  glasses  of  absinthe  are  set  out  on  those 
little  tables  which  are  allowed  to  obstruct  the  sidewalk. 
What  multitudes  are  to  be  found  in  this  rash  assem 
bly  1  At  this  hour  Paris  is  poisoning  itself !  "  Drunk 
enness  is  a  desperate  disease,  to  be  cured  by  prohibi 
tory  measures  of  all  sorts.  "  Qui  a  bu,  boira."  The 
patient  must  be  restrained,  as  he  has  lost  the  power  of 
self-command.  The  most  radical  measures  are  recom 
mended  to  prevent  the  production  of  alcoholic  drinks. 
M.  Despine  would  even  limit  the  cultivation  of  the 
vine  by  law. 

The  author  makes  small  account  of  the  religious  pro 
fessions  so  common  in  convicted  criminals.  They  are 
found  for  the  most  part  to  be  dictated  by  fear  of  the 
future,  and  not  by  remorse  for  the  crime  committed. 
Strange  instances  are  given  of  the  manner  in  which 
crime  sometimes  goes  hand  in  hand  with  devotion.  In 
1858  one  Parang  was  condemned  to  death  for  robbing 
and  murdering  an  old  lady.  His  wife  said,  "  This  hap 
pened  the  other  day,  and  while  he  was  at  the  old  wom 
an's,  I  was  praying  to  God  that  he  might  succeed  in 
his  enterprise."  A  member  of  a  band  of  assassins  and 
robbers  was  in  the  habit,  as  a  witness  stated,  of  going 
down  on  his  knees  in  church,  and  praying,  like  an 
Italian  brigand,  after  a  robbery  or  other  misdeed. 

Those  who  remember  the  "  chourineur  "  in  Eugene 
Sue's  "  Mysteries  of  Paris,"  may  find  in  the  pages  of 
the  work  before  us  portraits  of  criminals  with  fiercer 
instincts  and  far  more  malignant  natures  than  those  of 
the  stabber  of  that  famous  story.  Jarvot,  who  had 
murdered  a  couple  of  old  people,  said  that  after  he 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  341 

had  killed  the  wife  he  was  no  longer  master  of  him 
self  ;  "  the  devil  pushed  me  on ;  if  there  had  been  a 
dozen  of  them,  a  dozen  I  should  have  killed ;  I  did 
not  know  any  longer  what  I  was  about."  Here  is  the 
story  of  the  too  famous  Lacenaire,  a  criminal  with 
thirty  different  charges  against  him,  —  forgeries,  rob 
beries,  assassinations ;  here  is  the  frightful  record  of 
Dumollard,  "1'assassin  des  servantes,"  who  kept  a 
private  cemetery  for  his  victims,  as  we  were  told  in 
our  newspapers  of  the  time,  on  his  own  premises ; 
sixteen  young  women  were  known  to  have  been  mur 
dered  by  him  ;  here  is  a  long  account  of  the  exami 
nation  of  Charles  Lemaire,  a  pale-faced,  blond-haired 
young  cut-throat,  nineteen  years  old,  whose  regrets 
after  a  bloody  deed  were  only  that  he  had  not  killed 
three  other  persons,  of  whom  his  father  was  one.  A 
very  brief  extract  from  the  trial  will  repay  the  reading, 
shocking  as  it  is  to  common  humanity.  It  fixes  for  us 
the  zero  of  moral  sensibility,  and  incidentally  gives  us 
a  glimpse  of  how  they  manage  an  examination  in 
France,  which,  whether  better  or  not,  is  very  different 
from  the  English  and  American  way. 

The  President.  After  your  mother's  death  your  fa 
ther  said  to  you,  "  You  are  now  the  only  object  of  my 
affections.  I  will  work  for  you  as  I  worked  for  your 
mother."  Such  language  must  have  made  a  strong 
impression  on  you? 

The  Prisoner.    Not  the  slightest. 

The  President.  You  have  not  been  willing  to 
work  ? 

The  Prisoner.  As  much  as  at  any  time  ;  yes,  I 
have  always  been  a  lazy  fellow. 

The  President.  But  this  thing  is  odious  that  you 
are  saying ! 


342       PAGES   FROM  AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

The  Prisoner.  I  know  that  very  well ;  I  understand 
perfectly  that  if  all  the  world  was  like  me,  it  could 
never  go  on. 

The  President.  So  you  understand  that  everybody 
else  must  work,  and  you  do  not  choose  to  do  any 
thing  ? 

The  Prisoner.  To  work,  one  must  make  an  exer 
tion,  and  that  I  will  not  do. 

The  President.  Your  father  was  afraid  you  would 
poison  him? 

The  Prisoner.  He  was  wrong  about  that.  I  had 
thought  of  doing  it,  to  be  sure ;  I  had  even  spoken  of 
it  to  him ;  it  was  not  the  will  that  was  wanting,  but  I 
am  not  much  of  an  expert  at  that  business. 

The  President.  And  your  only  regret  is  that  you 
did  not  kill  three  persons  in  place  of  one  ? 

The  Prisoner.   Four. 

The  President.  You  did  not  stop  at  the  thought 
of  parricide,  then  ? 

The  Prisoner.  On  the  contrary,  I  was  happy  in 
the  idea  of  vengeance ;  I  will  hold  to  that  to  the  last. 

The  President.  So  you  keep  to  the  same  senti 
ments. 

The  Prisoner.  Always;  they  will  never  change. 
If  I  had  spared  my  father,  I  should  have  left  out  the 
principal  part  of  the  performance. 

This  youth,  of  not  unprepossessing  aspect,  kept  up 
his  character  from  the  first  moment  when  he  stood 
twirling  his  moustache  at  the  bar,  to  the  last  hour, 
when  he  wanted  his  locks  smoothed  down,  his  forehead 
well  shown,  and  his  back  hair  parted  before  going  to 
execution;  and  he  stivtdu-d  his  neck  out  for  the  axe  as 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  343 

calmly  as  if  he  had  been  John  the  Baptist.  —  The  mob 
stones  such  a  wretch,  or  tears  him  in  pieces,  or  strings 
him  up  to  the  next  bough ;  the  court  has  the  gallows 
or  the  block  ready  for  such  a  criminal;  the  priest 
points  to  the  fiery  oubliette,  where  God  forgets  his 
creatures,  ready  -  heated  for  such  a  sinner ;  the  phi 
losopher  sees  in  such  an  unfortunate  a  malformed  hu 
man  being.  These  monsters  of  crime,  he  will  tell  you, 
do  not  come  into  the  world  by  accident ;  they  are  the 
product  of  antecedent  conditions.  There  is  just  as 
certainly  something  wrong  in  their  nervous  centres,  — 
wrong  proportion  of  parts,  insufficiency  here,  excess 
there  ;  some  faulty  or  even  diseased  state,  —  as  there 
is  a  disarrangement  in  the  electric  telegraph  apparatus 
when  it  does  not  work  well  under  the  ordinary  sur 
rounding  conditions.  In  most  cases  crime  can  be 
shown  to  run  in  the  blood,  as  M.  Despine  proves  by 
different  examples.  —  An  instance  illustrating  this 
fact  was  recently  reported  by  Dr.  Harris  of  New 
York,  and  is  briefly  mentioned  in  the  "  Boston  Medical 
and  SurgicalJournal  "  for  January  28, 1875.  Finding 
crime  and  poverty  out  of  proportion  prevalent  in  a 
certain  county  on  the  upper  Hudson,  he  looked  up  the 
genealogy  of  the  families  whose  names  were  oftenest 
on  the  criminal  records.  He  found  that  a  young  girl 
called  Margaret  was  left  adrift  a  great  many  years  ago 
in  a  village  of  the  county.  Nine  hundred  descend 
ants  can  be  traced  to  this  girl,  including  six  genera 
tions.  Two  hundred  of  these  are  recorded  as  criminals, 
and  a  large  number  of  the  others,  idiots,  imbeciles, 
drunkards,  and  of  otherwise  degraded  character.  If 
genius  and  talent  are  inherited,  as  Mr.  Galton  has  so 
conclusively  shown ;  if  honesty  and  virtue  are  heir 
looms  in  certain  families ;  if  Falstaff  could  make  King 


344       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

Henry  know  his  son  by  a  villainous  trick  of  the  eye 
and  a  foolish  hanging  of  the  nether  lip,  —  and  who 
that  has  seen  two  or  three  generations  has  not  ob 
served  a  thousand  transmitted  traits,  villainous  or 
other,  in  those  all  around  him  ?  —  why  should  not 
deep-rooted  moral  defects  and  obliquities  show  them 
selves,  as  well  as  other  qualities,  in  the  descendants  of 
moral  monsters  ?  Shall  there  be  whole  families  with 
supernumerary  fingers,  families  of  "  bleeders,"  families 
with  deep-dimpled  chins,  with  single  strands  of  prema 
turely  white  hair,  and  other  trivial  peculiarities,  and 
shall  there  not  be  families  in  which  it  is  the  fatal  in 
stinct  of  the  child,  almost  as  soon  as  it  can  distinguish 
right  and  wrong,  to  say,  "  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  ?  " 
We  have  a  right  to  thank  God,  with  the  Pharisee,  that 
we  are  not  as  some  other  men,  but  we  must  not  lorget 
to  ask  with  the  Apostle,  "  "Who  maketh  thee  to  differ 
from  another  ? "  We  cannot  add  one  cubit  to  our 
stature,  and  there  is  no  more  reason  for  believing  that 
a  person  born  without  any  moral  sense  can  acquire  it, 
than  there  is  that  a  person  born  stone-deaf  can  become 
a  musician.  Its  apparent  absence  does  not  prove, 
however,  that  it  does  not  exist  in  some  rudimentary 
form,  and  in  such  cases  it  may  be  developed  to  a  cer 
tain  extent,  like  other  imperfect  faculties. 

It  is  plain  enough  from  M.  Despine's  doctrines  as 
to  the  mechanism  of  crime,  especially  in  the  worst 
cases,  that  he  would  substitute  a  moral  hospital  for  a 
place  of  punishment.  Moral  idiocy  is  the  greatest 
calamity  a  man  can  inherit,  and  the  subjects  of  it  de 
serve  our  deepest  pity  and  greatest  care. 
,  A  slight  sketch  of  the  programme  laid  down  in  the 
work  before  us  for  the  treatment  of  criminals  is  all 
that  can  be  here  given.  Its  author  does  not  consider 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  345 

himself  at  all  as  an  idealist,  working  in  a  sphere  of 
Utopian  impossibilities.  He  would  only  extend  to 
adults  the  methods  which  have  been  successfully  ap 
plied  on  the  large  scale  to  young  persons  in  various 
reform  schools,  especially  in  that  of  Mettray  in  France, 
the  course  pursued  in  which  and  the  admirable  results 
it  has  produced  are  detailed  at  some  length.  Miss 
Carpenter,  to  whom  he  refers,  holds  the  same  belief  as 
M.  Despine,  considering  adult  criminals  as  only  larger 
children  whose  regeneration  society  must  attempt  by 
means  similar  to  those  used  with  the  latter.  Criminals 
must  be  "  moralized,"  to  give  an  English  termination 
to  M.  Despine's  French  word. 

Of  course,  then,  hanging  is  not  the  best  use  to  which 
the  criminal  can  be  put.  The  author  argues  against 
capital  punishment  on  the  ground  that  it  is  unjust  as 
applied  to  moral  idiots,  immoral  considered  as  revenge, 
useless  as  a  means  of  intimidation,  and  dangerous  to 
society  by  cheapening  the  value  of  life. 

The  convict  prisons  of  France  (bagnes)  are,  to  bor 
row  the  energetic  language  of  Dr.  Bertrand,  "  laza 
rettos  which  one  enters  ailing  and  comes  out  of  pesti 
lential."  "  Vice,"  says  Edward  Livingston,  "  is  more 
contagious  than  disease." 

Transportation  has  replaced  the  convict  prison,  but 
the  transported  criminal,  having  had  no  fitting  moral 
treatment,  and  being  in  constant  relation  with  persons 
of  evil  disposition,  comes  back  as  bad  as  or  worse  than 
he  went  away. 

Solitary  imprisonment  injures  the  subject  of  it  in 
mind  and  character,  unfits  him  for  resuming  his  rela 
tions  with  the  community  when  he  is  discharged,  and 
leads  to  insanity  and  to  suicide. 

All  too  severe  penalties  are  less  likely  to  be  inflicted 


845       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

than  if  they  were  more  moderate,  because  the  juries 
will  try  to  fasten  on  some  doubt  so  as  to  avoid  their 
infliction.  Magistrates  are  liable  to  grow  cruel  by  the 
mere  effect  of  habitually  sentencing  criminals.  The 
old  author  of  the  "  Antiquities  of  Paris  "  says  that  the 
origin  of  the  criminal  chamber  of  the  Parliament, 
called  the  Tournelle,  explains  its  name,  which  was 
given  because  the  counsellors  served  in  rotation,  three 
months  at  a  time ;  perhaps,  as  he  suggests,  for  the 
reason  that  the  habit  of  condemning  men  to  death  was 
liable  to  render  them  hard-hearted  and  inhuman.  It 
used  to  be  thought  that  a  certain  magistrate  in  this 
community  had  become  too  used  to  flaying  his  eels,  so 
to  speak,  and  that  he  had  grown  somewhat  too  indif 
ferent  to  the  suffering  he  inflicted  in  the  form  of  a  sen 
tence,  though  a  kind-hearted  body  enough  by  nature. 

We  are  to  have  done  with  gibbets  and  fetters,  then, 
for  the  most  desperate  offenders,  and  are  to  substitute 
moral  hospitals.  We  are  to  give  up  the  idea  of  pun 
ishment  for  these  unfortunates,  and  institute  proper 
methods  of  palliative  and  curative  treatment.  If  re 
straint  is  used  it  is  only  as  the  strait-jacket  is  employed 
to  keep  a  maniac  from  doing  mischief ;  if  pain  is  in 
flicted,  it  is  only  as  a  blister  or  a  moxa  is  applied  to  a 
patient.  M.  Despine  borrows  a  lesson  from  our  fa 
mous  countryman,  Rarey,  whose  treatment  of  horses 
was  founded  on  a  patient  study  of  equine  psychology. 
How  much  may  be  learned  from  studying  the  mental 
and  moral  characters  and  developments  of  children, 
and  of  the  lower  animals,  we  hardly  know  as  yet,  l>ut 
it  would  not  be  very  rash  to  predict  that  another  gen 
eration  will  see  great  volumes  on  Comparative  Psy 
chology  and  Psychological  Embryology. 

It  may  seem  rather  singular  to  many  readers,  that 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  347 

while  the  most  frightful  acts  are  considered  as  proofs 
of  innocence,  that  is,  of  moral  idiocy,  and  to  be  treated 
as  disease,  not  vindictively,  offences  less  grave  in  as 
pect  are  to  be  visited  with  penalties  proportioned  in 
kind  and  degree  to  their  character.  The  whole  ques 
tion  is  how  far  there  was  an  act  of  self-determination. 
If  the  person  committing  homicide,  for  instance,  was 
destitute  of  moral  instincts,  as  shown  by  his  killing 
wholesale,  without  compunction,  without  remorse,  with 
every  kind  of  barbarity ;  if  he  were  in  a  violent  pas 
sion  at  the  time ;  if  he  were  drunk,  not  having  got 
drunk  on  purpose  :  he  was  an  automaton  that  did  mis 
chief,  to  be  sure,  but  was  no  more  to  blame  for  the  par 
ticular  acts  in  question  than  a  locomotive  that  runs  off 
the  track  is  to  blame  for  the  destruction  it  works. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  criminal  who  had  committed 
a  less  aggravated  offence  gave  evidence  that  he  had 
a  consciousness  he  was  doing  wrong,  and  if  there  was 
no  proof  that  he  was  blinded  by  passion  or  drink,  he 
should  undergo  a  moderate  punishment  to  give  him  a 
salutary  lesson  and  to  deter  others  from  doing  like 
him. 

In  short,  the  man  who  commits  the  most  atrocious 
and  multiplied  enormities  seems  to  be  looked  upon  by 
M.  Despine  as  in  a  state  of  moral  mania  ;  and  no  su 
perintendent  of  an  insane  asylum  would  consider  the 
worst  acts  a  patient  suffering  from  mania  could  com 
mit  as  so  fitly  calling  for  the  employment  of  discipline 
as  a  slight  offence  committed  by  a  patient  who,  though 
not  perfectly  sane,  knew  better  than  to  do  what  he  had 
done. 

The  preventive  treatment  of  crime  is  considered  at 
length,  but  inasmuch  as  this  includes  pretty  nearly 
every  civilizing  agency,  and  the  elimination  of  pretty 


848       PAGES   FROM   AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

nearly  every  social  wrong,  it  may  be  very  briefly  dis 
posed  of  here.  It  involves  the  moral  education  of  the 
people,  —  removing,  combating,  and  suppressing  all 
the  causes  of  moral  degradation,  such  as  poverty,  lux 
ury,  popular  excitements,  drunkenness,  the  contagion 
of  bad  passions,  and  restraining  the  publication  of 
criminal  trials  and  of  debasing  literature.  Persons 
shown  to  be  dangerous  should  be  shut  up,  it  is  main 
tained,  before  they  have  a  chance  to  repeat  their  acts 
of  violence  or  other  wrong. 

This  is  a  very  suggestive  hint.  Do  we  not  see,  in 
certain  well-known  localities  of  our  own  city,  gamblers 
and  other  sharpers,  well  known  as  such,  lying  in  wait 
day  after  day  for  their  victims,  undisturbed  by  the 
very  officers  who  from  time  to  time  parade  the  story 
of  their  breaking  into  apartments  and  capturing  faro- 
tables,  "  chips,"  and  similar  implements  of  rascality 
in  the  dens  at  the  doors  of  which  these  rogues  watch 
for  their  prey  ?  and  is  there  no  way  of  dealing  with 
them  as  the  poor  evening  strollers  are  dealt  with  from 
time  to  time  on  the  strength  of  their  well-known  char 
acters  and  occupation  ?  Have  not  some  of  our  great 
cities  gangs  of  burglars  whose  business  is  as  publicly 
notorious  as  any  calling  that  is  not  advertised  in  the 
papers  ?  and  must  the  law  wait  until  they  have  robbed 
or  killed  some  new  victim  before  it  undertakes  to  med 
dle  with  them  ?  Honest-minded  people  may  well  ask 
why  these  dangerous  persons  should  not  be  dealt  with 
as  summarily  as  harmless  drunkards  and  homeless  va 
grants.  Moral  treatment  might  possibly  do  something 
for  them,  and  even  if  it  took  the  form  of  discipline,  it 
might  not  hurt  them.  At  any  rate  the  community 
would  be  better  protected,  and  the  shameful  insult  of 
allowing  these  notorious  rogues  to  have  their  regular 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  349 

stands,  like  the  apple  and  orange  women,  would  be 
spared  to  our  citizens.  A  little  something  of  the 
Turkish  Cadi's  methods  infused  into  our  city  police 
management  would  be  very  refreshing. 

A  principal  object  of  this  article  is  to  call  attention 
to  the  questions  discussed  in  the  very  curious  and  re 
markable  work  of  M.  Despine,  and  to  the  book  itself 
as  one  which  cannot  fail  to  interest  any  reader  who  will 
take  it  up,  whether  he  agrees  with  its  somewhat  star 
tling  propositions  or  not.  The  psychologist  will  be  at 
tracted  by  its  studies  of  the  working  of  motives  in  the 
minds  of  criminals ;  the  philanthropist  will  find  con 
firmation  of  many  of  his  cherished  beliefs  ;  the  magis 
trate  may  learn  something  which  will  cause  him  to  think 
more  leniently  of  the  unhappy  creatures  whom  he  is 
compelled  to  sentence  ;  the  divine  may  be  led  to  recon 
sider  his  traditional  formula  of  human  nature.  How  far 
the  practical  measures  recommended  may  prove  gener 
ally  applicable  is  another  matter.  They  can  be  met  at 
every  step  by  the  most  obvious  objections.  Yet  that 
they  are  founded  in  essential  justice  and  true  human 
ity  towards  the  criminal,  very  many  will  be  ready  to 
grant.  What  society  in  its  present  imperfect  condi 
tion  cares  most  for  is  the  cheapest  and  surest  protec 
tion  against  the  effects  of  crime,  not  the  moral  educa 
tion  which  is  expected  to  prevent  the  formation  of  the 
criminal  character,  or  the  remedial  measures  which  are 
to  restore  the  criminal  to  moral  sanity.  That  the 
movement  of  reform  should  be  in  this  last  direction  is 
plain  enough,  but  even  M.  Despine  himself  does  not 
look  forward  to  the  time  when  sin  and  crime  shall  be 
educated  out  of  the  community.  The  millennium  is  a 
delightful  vision,  but  our  imaginations  can  hardly 
make  it  real  to  us  when  we  see  what  men  are  as  we 


850       PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

know  tin-in  at  present.  The  evil-doers  as  well  as  the 
poor  we  have  always  with  us.  We  cannot  help  smiling 
at  the  sanguine  hopes  of  those  simple-hearted  reform 
ers  who  look  forward  to  the  time  when  ginger  will  not 
be  hot  in  the  mouth ;  when  there  shall  be  cakes  but 
no  ale ; 

When  the  roughs,  as  we  call  them,  grown  loving  and  dutiful, 
Shall  worship  the  true  and  the  pure  and  the  beautiful, 
And,  preying  no  longer  as  tiger  and  vulture  do, 
All  read  "  The  Atlantic  "  as  persons  of  culture  do. 

What  we  are  doing  now  is  only  getting  ready  for 
the  twentieth  century,  and  this  book  is  full  of  sugges- 
tions  of  great  social  changes  involving  new  duties 
which  will  call  for  the  self-devotion  of  a  yet  unborn 
generation  of  brothers  and  sisters  of  charity. 

Independently  of  all  the  instruction  the  psycholo 
gist  will  derive  from  this  most  interesting  work,  of  the 
practical  lessons  it  suggests  or  enforces,  the  reader  who 
is  in  search  of  mere  entertainment  will  find  enough  to 
keep  him  in  good  humor.  There  is  always  a  peculiar 
delight  in  reading  a  book  written  in  a  foreign  lan 
guage,  if  we  are  tolerably  familiar  with  that  language. 
Effects  of  style  which  a  native  would  never  dream  of, 
add  to  the  value  of  whatever  merit  there  is  in  what 
we  are  reading.  An  idea  worded  in  our  own  tongue 
is  like  silver  on  silver  ;  the  same  idea  reaching  us 
through  an  alien  idiom  is  like  zinc  on  silver,  —  the 
contact  produces  a  kind  of  galvanic  effect.  Besides,  a 
Frenchman  always  amuses  an  English-speaking  reader, 
with  his  dramatic  way  of  putting  things,  no  matter 
what  he  is  talking  about.  He  cannot  give  an  account 
of  his  mother's  funeral  without  provoking  an  Anglo- 
Saxon's  smile.  One  sentence  must  be  quoted  here  in 
the  original ;  it  illustrates  this  sub-ridiculous  impre» 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  351 

sion  made  at  a  serious  moment,  —  the  incendiary  was 
imprisoned  for  life,  —  and  conveys  at  the  same  time  in 
a  neat  and  compendious  form  the  leading  doctrine  of 
the  work  and  the  comment  of  "  common-sense "  as 
represented  by  one  of  the  great  tribe  of  the  Pooh- 
Poohs :  — 

Le  President.  Vous  pretendez  que  la  multiplicity 
des  incendies  est  une  preuve  de  la  folie.  En  ve'rite', 
les  bras  me  tombent !  II  suffira  done  de  commettre 
six  incendies  pour  etre  conside'rd  comme  un  monomane, 
et  vingt  pour  etre  inviolable  et  sacr^  !  " 

We  learn,  too,  the  most  wonderful  things  about  our 
selves  in  a  Frenchman's  books.  Some  years  ago  feu 
Monsieur  Trousseau,  the  famous  Parisian  doctor,  told 
the  audience  which  listened  to  one  of  his  lectures  that 
if  a  milliner  left  the  boulevards  for  Broadway,  in  six 
weeks  after  she  had  opened  her  shop  the  bonnets  she 
made  would  frighten  a  Choctaw.  M.  Despine  tells  us 
we  have  in  this  country  adherents  of  the  sect  of  Ad 
amites,  a  religious  body  which  dispenses  with  all  the 
disguises  in  the  way  of  clothing  which  have  been  con 
trived  since  the  days  of  innocence.  This  could  hardly 
be  so  far  north  as  New  England.  Possibly  he  may 
refer  to  New  York,  where,  as  we  know  on  the  excel 
lent  authority  of  Mr.  William  Allen  Butler,  some  of 
the  persons  who  live  in  the  most  showy  quarters  of  the 
city  are  so  destitute  that  they  literally  have  "  nothing 
to  wear."  M.  Despine  quotes  Mittermaier  as  saying 
that  an  incendiary  was  hung  in  Boston  in  1846,  the 
first  for  a  long  time,  that  incendiary  fires  became  more 
frequent  after  that  in  the  city  and  its  neighborhood, 
and  that  an  inquiry  instituted  by  the  government 
showed  that  all  the  incendiaries  were  present  at  the 
execution  referred  to.  Two  incendiaries,  Russell  and 


352        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

Crockett,  were  hung  in  Boston  in  1836,  and  it  has 
commonly  been  said  that  there  were  no  more  incendi 
ary  fires  for  a  long  time  afterwards.  The  ingenuity 
of  French  writers  in  twisting  English  names  and  words 
into  fanciful  shapes  is  a  never-failing  source  of  pleas 
ure  in  reading  any  of  their  books  which  give  them  a 
chance  to  do  it.  If  they  can  get  the  letters  wrong 
they  will.  Thus  we  are  introduced  by  M.  Despine  to 
Miss  Marry  Carpenter  and  Mr.  Edgard  Poe,  and  rec 
ognize  a  well-known  arrangement  for  affording  health 
ful,  useful,  but  involuntary  exercise  and  amusement  to 
convicts  as  Le  Thredmill.  Altogether  one  can  find  a 
good  deal  of  entertainment  in  a  book  written  with  a 
very  startling  theory  as  its  basis  and  a  very  important 
practical  purpose  as  its  chief  end.  Many  who  take  it 
up  with  no  higher  aim  than  entertainment  may  find  in 
its  pages  reasons  for  reconsidering  their  long-cherished 
views  of  human  nature,  the  springs  of  human  action, 
and  the  claims  to  commiseration  of  those  who  have 
been  considered  as  self-elected  outcasts,  even  while  a 
social  order  in  which  justice  is  practically  impossible 
treats  them  according  to  the  law  of  expediency  as 
locally  and  temporarily  interpreted. 

Some  books  are  edifices  to  stand  as  they  are  built ; 
some  are  hewn  stones  ready  to  form  a  part  of  future 
edifices ;  some  are  quarries  from  which  stones  are  to 
be  split  for  shaping  and  after  use.  This  book  is  a 
quarry  of  facts ;  it  furnishes  many  well-shaped  infer 
ences  and  conclusions ;  and  some  of  these  are  so  put 
together  that  they  may  be  considered  as  forming  a 
threshold  if  not  a  porch  for  that  fair  temple  of  justice 
which  we  may  hope  is  yet  to  be  constructed. 

There  is  a  considerable  literature  relating  to  the 


CRIME  AND  AUTOMATISM.  353 

subject  of  prison  reform,  to  which  only  a  brief  refer 
ence  need  be  made  in  this  connection,  as  the  object  of 
the  paper  before  the  reader  is  rather  to  open  for  him 
the  question  of  the  true  moral  condition  of  criminals 
as  responsible  beings  in  the  light  of  an  individual 
study  of  their  mental  conditions,  than  to  deal  with  the 
practical  matters  which  can  only  be  properly  handled 
by  men  of  trained  experience  who  devote  themselves 
expressly  to  their  consideration. 

The  very  intelligent  and  interesting  reports  and 
communications  of  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn  of  Massachu 
setts,  as  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  State  Charities  and 
as  member  of  the  Social  Science  Association,  are  full 
of  information  with  reference  to  the  reformatory  meth 
ods  which  have  been  on  trial,  more  especially  during 
the  last  twenty  years.  Of  these,  the  Irish  system,  so 
called,  the  invention  of  Captain  Maconochie,  carried 
out  to  some  extent  in  Great  Britain  by  Sir  Walter 
Crofton,  is  the  one  most  promising  of  lasting  results. 
To  state  its  principal  features  in  a  single  sentence,  it 
proceeds  on  the  idea  that  no  man  is  utterly  incorrigi 
ble,  or  at  least  that  no  man  is  to  be  dealt  with  on  that 
supposition  until  proper  efforts  have  been  made  to  re 
claim  him ;  that  hope  and  not  fear  is  the  chief  motive 
to  be  addressed  to  the  criminal ;  it  makes  provision 
that  while  he  brings  upon  himself,  by  his  crime,  conse 
quences  which  prove  a  very  severe  discipline,  he  can 
yet  by  his  own  effort  obtain  their  gradual  and  pro 
gressive  alleviation,  shortening  of  the  term  of  impris 
onment,  relaxation  of  the  most  trying  parts  of  the  dis 
cipline,  and  in  due  time  promotion  to  what  is  called  an 
intermediate  prison,  followed,  where  there  is  sufficient 
evidence  of  reformation  of  character  and  habits,  by  a 
conditional  discharge,  the  restored  patient,  if  we  may 


354       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

call  him  so,  still  remaining  under  the  general  superin 
tendence  of  the  moral  health-officer  commonly  known 
as  policeman. 

This  Irish  system  is,  our  secretary  says,  "  common- 
sense  applied  to  convicts."  It  is  really  an  attempt  to 
extend  to  moral  unsoundness,  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
often  has  many  of  the  characters  of  congenital  imper 
fection,  the  reform  which  Pinel  introduced  into  the 
treatment  of  common  insanity. 

To  see  what  can  be  done  with  boys  and  adolescents 
it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  M.  Bonneville  de  Mar- 
sangy's  most  interesting  account  of  the  Colonie  Pe'ni- 
tentiaire  of  Mettray.  Allowing  for  the  dramatic  ele 
ment  which  is  born  with  the  gesticulating  Frenchman, 
and  comes  out  in  his  rhetoric,  the  results  claimed  for 
that  institution  are  extraordinary.  The  account  given 
by  M.  Demetz  of  the  "  Maison  Paternelle,"  where 
children  from  families  of  good  condition  who  have 
proved  refractory  to  domestic  influences,  young  repro 
bates  dyed  in  the  wool  with  perversity,  are  taken  into 
a  kind  of  moral  bleachery  and  come  out  white  as  lambs, 
is  still  more  surprising  in  the  results  alleged  to  have 
been  obtained. 

The  motives  which  have  proved  so  efficient  with 
young  persons  have  been  relied  on  by  the  two  reform 
ers  to  whom  the  Irish  system  is  due,  in  the  case  of 
adults,  and  the  best  effects  have  followed  their  substi 
tution  for  harsher  measures.  "The  prevention  of 
crime  and  the  reformation  of  the  criminal,"  says  Mr. 
Sanborn,  "  are  the  great  objects  of  prison  discipline, 
and  any  system  which  does  not  secure  these  is  costly 
at  any  price."  But  we  must  remember  Lord  Stan 
ley's  saying  that  "  the  reformation  of  men  can  never  be- 
come  a  mechanical  process."  Those  who  look  into  the 


CRIME  AND   AUTOMATISM.  355 

methods  which  have  proved  successful  will  see  that 
they  are  the  same  by  which  savages  and  barbarians 
are  reclaimed,  so  far  as  that  is  ever  effected,  namely, 
the  personal  efforts  of  self -devoted  individuals.  A 
system  may  be  perfect,  but  if  it  is  not  administered 
by  sincere  and  faithful  agents,  it  is  of  little  use. 

It  need  not  be  supposed  that  those  who  take  the 
views  of  criminal  psychology,  of  which  M.  Despine 
may  be  considered  the  extreme  advocate,  are  always  in 
favor  of  that  emollient  treatment  of  crime,  of  the  in 
fluence  of  which  Coleridge  gives  an  eloquent  and 
slightly  absurd  portraiture  in  his  tragedy  of  "  Re 
morse."  The  guilty  creature  whom  "  our  pampered 
mountebanks  "  (my  lord  chief  justice  and  other  func 
tionaries)  have  shut  up  in  a  dungeon  is  wrought  upon 
by  the  influences  of  nature,  —  her 

"  Sunny  hues,  fair  forms,  and  breathing  sweets, 
(Her)  melodies  of  woods  and  winds  and  waters, 
Till  he  relent,  and  can  no  more  endure 
To  be  a  jarring  and  a  dissonant  thing 
Amid  this  general  dance  and  minstrelsy  ; 
But,  bursting  into  tears,  wins  back  his  way, 
His  angry  spirit  healed  and  harmonized 
By  the  benignant  touch  of  love  and  beauty." 

Such  hopeful  and  florid  anticipations  indulged  with 
reference  to  a  criminal  like  Mrs.  Brownrigg  — 

"  Does  thou  ask  her  crime  ? 
She  whipped  two  female  'prentices  to  death 
And  hid  them  in  the  coal-hole  "  — 

might  well  provoke  the  satire  of  the  author  of  the 
"  Needy  Knife-Grinder  "  and  the  laugh  of  the  readers 
of  the  "  Anti-Jacobin." 

But  it  is  not  every  reformer  who  would  confine  soci 
ety  to  "  secondary  punishments,"  excluding  capital 


356       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

ones,  and  it  is  not  a  necessary  consequence  of  "  physi 
ological  "  views  of  the  criminal  nature,  that  sharp  dis 
cipline  shall  not  be  applied  to  it.  M.  BonnevUle  de 
Marsangy,  an  old  and  experienced  judge,  whose  work 
on  the  amelioration  of  the  criminal  law  is  of  very  high 
authority  with  prison  reformers,  says,  with  reference 
to  the  case  of  Dumollard,  and  M.  Victor  Hugo's  plea 
against  capital  punishment,  "  I  add  that  if,  having  to 
pronounce  against  one  of  those  abominable  attempts 
which  shock  the  feelings  of  the  public,  the  jury,  guided 
by  false  notions  of  philanthropy,  should  at  the  present 
time  reject  the  death  penalty,  it  would  in  so  doing 
thrust  back  all  civilization ;  for  in  annulling  the  su 
preme  guaranty  of  public  security,  it  would  infallibly 
restore  the  era  of  private  revenges,  and  with  these  all 
the  bloody  and  horrible  reprisals  of  barbarous  ages." 
It  seems  a  little  singular  to  find  a  magistrate  writing 
in  behalf  of  the  criminal,  recognizing  not  the  less  the 
claims  of  instinct  even  in  the  form  of  lynch -law. 
Insanity  itself  is  not  necessarily  a  sufficient  reason 
against  discipline,  and  it  is  the  esoteric  opinion  of  a 
celebrated  expert  that  a  whipping  may,  under  certain 
circumstances,  be  very  useful  to  a  patient  who  is  not  in 
full  possession  of  his  reason.  Captain  Maconochie, 
the  father  of  the  Irish  system,  does  not  condemn  punish 
ment,  as  such,  but  believes  it  indispensable.  It  is  not, 
however,  to  be  administered  as  a  vindictive  measure, 
but  as  a  benevolent  means,  having  reform  for  its  ob 
ject.  His  men  at  Norfolk  Island,  where  the  experi 
ment  was  first  instituted,  had  to  endure  the  legal  pen 
alties  of  imprisonment  and  hard  labor,  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  words,  as  a  retribution  of  their  misdoings. 
Mr.  Sanborn  believes  that  habitual  criminals  should 
be  sentenced  for  much  longer  periods  than  they  com- 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  357 

monly  are,  —  twice  and  even  three  times  as  long.  Ob 
viously  these  reformers  are  not  fanatics  ;  they  are  not 
ultraists  and  Utopians ;  they  have  striking  results  to 
show,  and  the  objections  and  obstacles  they  have  to 
encounter  are  such  as  the  advanced  guard  of  every  on 
ward  movement  of  society  must  expect  to  encounter. 

In  looking  over  this  whole  subject  we  must  re 
member  that  anthropology  is  in  its  infancy,  in  spite 
of  the  heaven-descended  precept  of  antiquity  and  the 
copy-book  pentameter  line  of  Pope.  Instinct  still 
moves  in  us  as  it  did  in  Cain  and  those  relatives  of 
his  who  he  was  afraid  would  lynch  him.  Law  comes 
to  us  from  a  set  of  marauders  who  cased  themselves  in 
iron,  and  the  possessions  they  had  won  by  conquest  in 
edicts  as  little  human  in  their  features  as  the  barred 
visors  that  covered  their  faces.  Poor  fantastic  Dr. 
Robert  Knox  was  still  groaning  in  1850  over  the  bat 
tle  of  Hastings ;  not  quite  ineptly,  it  may  be.  Our 
most  widely  accepted  theologies  owe  their  dogmas  to 
a  few  majority  votes  passed  by  men  who  would  have 
hanged  our  grandmothers  as  witches  and  burned  our 
ministers  as  heretics. 

Insanity  was  possession  in  times  well  remembered. 
Malformed  births,  "  monsters,"  as  they  were  called, 
frightened  our  New  England  fathers  almost  as  much 
as  comets,  the  legitimate  origin  and  harmless  character 
of  which  eccentric  but  well-meaning  citizens  of  the 
universe  had  to  be  defended  against  learned  and  ex 
cellent  John  Prince,  the  minister  of  the  Old  South, 
by  Professor  Pierce's  predecessor  at  the  fifth  remove 
in  the  Chair  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philoso 
phy  of  Harvard  University.  Abbas  (probably  Haly 
Abbas,  the  great  physician),  says  Haller,  came  very 


358          PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

near  being  thrown  away,  at  his  birth,  as  a  monster. 
By  and  by  came  the  nineteenth  century,  and  Geoffroy- 
Saint-Hilaire's  treatise  on  "  Teratology,"  which  did  for 
malformations  what  Cuvier's  "  Ossemens  Fossiles  "  did 
for  the  lusus  naturce,  as  fossil  organic  remains  were 
called  by  the  old  observers  of  curious  natural  phe 
nomena. 

Just  in  the  same  way  moral  anomalies  must  be  stud 
ied.  "  Psychology,"  says  M.  Ribot  ("  Heredity,"  trans 
lation,  London,  1875),  "  like  physiology,  has  its  rare 
cases,  but  unfortunately  not  so  much  trouble  has  been 
taken  to  note  and  describe  them.  —  There  are  some 
purely  moral  states  which  are  met  with  in  a  certain 
class  of  criminals  —  murderers,  robbers,  and  incen 
diaries  —  which,  if  we  renounce  all  prejudices  and 
preconceived  opinions,  can  only  be  regarded  as  phys 
iological  accidents,  more  painful  and  not  less  incur 
able  than  those  of  deaf-muteness  and  blindness.  — 
These  creatures,  as  Dr.  Lucas  says,  partake  only  of 
the  form  of  man  ;  there  is  in  their  blood  somewhat  of 
the  tiger  and  of  the  brute :  they  are  innocently  crim 
inal,  and  sometimes  are  capable  of  every  crime."  The 
writer  of  this  article  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  say 
ing  that  he  published  in  the  year  1860  a  tale  which 
he  has  never  forgiven  one  of  his  still  cherished  and 
charming  friends  for  calling  "  a  medicated  novel,"  the 
aim  of  which  was  to  illustrate  this  same  innocently 
criminal  automatism  with  the  irresponsibility  it  im 
plies,  by  the  supposed  mechanical  introduction  before 
birth  of  an  ophidian  element  into  the  blood  of  a  hu 
man  being. 

How  different  are  the  views  brought  before  the 
reader  in  this  paper,  as  regards  the  range  of  the  hu 
man  will  and  the  degree  of  human  accountability, 


CRIME   AND   AUTOMATISM.  359 

from  those  taught  by  the  larger  number  of  the  persons 
to  whom  we  are  expected  to  look  for  guidance,  is  plain 
enough.  They  may  dispute  the  dogma  "  omnis  peccans 
est  ignorans"  if  they  will,  but  they  cannot  efface  the 
prayer  "  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do,"  which  recognizes  moral  blindness,  nor  the  peti 
tion  "lead  us  not  into  temptation,"  which  recognizes 
moral  infirmity.  Moral  psychology  does  no  more  for 
the  criminal  than  to  furnish  a  comprehensive  commen 
tary  on  these  two  texts.  If  we  cannot  help  feeling 
more  and  more  that  it  is  God  who  worketh  in  us  to 
will  and  to  do,  by  the  blood  we  inherit  amd  the  nur 
ture  we  receive ;  nay,  even  if  the  destructive  analy 
sis  of  our  new  schoolmen  threatens  to  distil  away  all 
we  once  called  self-determination  and  free-will,  leav 
ing  only  a  caput  mortuum  of  animal  substance  and 
"  strongest  motive,"  we  need  not  be  greatly  alarmed. 

For  the  belief  in  a  power  of  self-determination,  and 
the  idea  of  possible  future  remorse  connected  with  it, 
will  still  remain  with  all  but  the  moral  incapables,  — 
and  the  metaphysicians,  —  and  this  belief  can  be  ef 
fectively  appealed  to  and  will  furnish  a  "  strongest 
motive  "  readily  enough  in  a  great  proportion  of  cases. 
In  practice  we  must  borrow  a  lesson  from  martial  law. 
A  sentry  does  not  go  to  sleep  at  his  post,  because  he 
knows  he  will  be  shot  if  he  does.  Society  must  pre 
sent  such  motives  of  fear  to  the  criminally  disposed  as 
are  most  effective  in  the  long  run  for  its  protection. 
Its  next  duty  is  to  the  offender,  who  has  his  rights, 
were  these  only  to  be  hanged  with  a  rope  strong 
enough  to  hold  his  weight,  by  an  artist  who  under 
stands  his  business.  A  criminal,  as  we  now  contem 
plate  him,  may  deserve  our  deepest  pity  and  tenderest 
care  as  much  as  if  he  were  the  tenant  of  a  hospital  or 


360       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

an  asylum  instead  of  a  prison.  And  in  the  infliction 
of  the  gravest  penalties  it  must  not  be  taken  for 
granted  that  while  we  are  punishing  "  crime  "  we  are 
punishing  sin,  for  if  this  last  were  in  court  the  pris 
oner  might  not  rarely  sit  in  judgment  on  the  magis 
trate. 


XI. 

JONATHAN  EDWARDS. 

I  As  the  centennial  anniversaries  of  noteworthy  events 

and  signal  births  come  round,  frequent  and  importu 
nate  as  tax-bills,  fearful  with  superlatives  as  school 
girls'  letters,  wearisome  with  iteration  as  a  succession 
of  drum-solos,  noisy  with  trumpet-blowing  through  the 
land  as  the  jubilee  of  Israel,  we  are,  perhaps,  in  dan 
ger  of  getting  tired  of  reminiscences.  A  foreigner 
might  well  think  the  patron  saint  of  America  was 
Saint  Anniversary.  As  our  aboriginal  predecessors 
dug  up  the  bones  of  their  ancestors  when  they  removed 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  carried  them  with  the 
living  on  their  journey,  so  we  consider  it  a  religious 
duty,  at  stated  intervals  in  the  journey  of  time,  to  ex 
hume  the  memories  of  dead  personages  and  events,  and 
look  at  them  in  the  light  of  the  staring  and  inquisitive 
present,  before  consigning  them  again  to  the  sepul 
chre. 

A  recent  centennial  celebration  seems  to  make  this 
a  fitting  time  for  any  of  us,  who  may  feel  a  call  or  an 
inclination,  to  examine  the  life  and  religious  teachings 
of  a  man  of  whom  Mr.  Bancroft  has  said,  referring  to 
his  relations  to  his  theological  successors,  that  "  his 
influence  is  discernible  on  every  leading  mind.  Bel 
lamy  and  Hopkins  were  his  pupils  ;  Dwight  was  his 
expositor ;  Smalley,  Emmons,  and  many  others  were 
his  followers  ;  through  Hopkins  his  influence  reached 


362        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

Kirkland,  and  assisted  in  moulding  the  character  of 
Channing." 

Of  all  the  scholars  and  philosophers  that  America 
had  produced  before  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen 
tury,  two  only  had  establish-  -d  a  considerable  and  per 
manent  reputation  in  the  world  of  European  thought, 
—  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Jonathan  Edwards.  No 
two  individuals  could  well  differ  more  in  tempera 
ment,  character,  beliefs,  and  mode  of  life  than  did 
these  two  men,  representing  respectively  intellect,  prac 
tical  and  abstract.  Edwards  would  have  called  Frank 
lin  an  infidel,  and  turned  him  over  to  the  uncovenanted 
mercies,  if,  indeed,  such  were  admitted  in  his  pro 
gramme  of  the  Divine  administration.  Franklin  would 
have  called  Edwards  a  fanatic,  and  tried  the  effect  of 
"  Poor  Richard's  "  common-sense  on  the  major  prem 
ises  of  his  remorseless  syllogisms. 

We  are  proud  of  the  great  Boston-born  philosopher, 
who  snatched  the  thunderbolt  from  heaven  with  one 
hand,  and  the  sceptre  from  tyranny  with  the  other. 
So,  also,  we  are  proud  of  the  great  New  England  di 
vine,  of  whom  it  might  be  said  quite  as  truly,  "  Eri- 
puit  coslo  fulmen."  Did  not  Dugald  Stewart  and  Sir 
James  Mackintosh  recognize  his  extraordinary  ability  ? 
Did  not  Robert  Hall,  in  one  of  those  "fits  of  easy 
transmission,"  in  which  loose  and  often  extravagant 
expressions  escape  from  excitable  minds,  call  him  "  the 
greatest  of  the  sons  of  men  "  ?  Such  praise  was  very 
rare  in  those  days,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  we  have 
made  the  most  of  these  and  similar  fine  phrases.  We 
always  liked  the  English  official  mark  on  our  provin 
cial  silver,  and  there  was  not  a  great  deal  of  it. 

In  studying  the  characteristics  of  Edwards  in  his 
life  and  writings,  we  find  so  much  to  remind  us  of 


Jonathan  Edwards 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  363 

Pascal  that,  if  we  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  metem 
psychosis,  we  could  almost  feel  assured  that  the  Cath 
olic  had  come  back  to  earth  in  the  Calvinist.  Both 
were  of  a  delicate  and  nervous  constitution,  habitual 
invalids.  Their  features,  it  is  true,  have  not  so  much 
in  common.  The  portrait  prefixed  to  Dwight's  edition 
of  Edwards's  works  shows  us  a  high  forehead,  a  calm, 
steady  eye,  a  small,  rather  prim  mouth,  with  something 
about  it  of  the  unmated  and  no  longer  youthful  fe 
male.  The  medallion  of  Pascal  shows  a  head  not  large 
in  the  dome,  but  ample  in  the  region  of  the  brow, 
strongly  marked  features,  a  commanding  Roman  nose, 
a  square  jaw,  a  questioning  mouth,  an  asserting  chin, 
—  a  look  altogether  not  unlike  that  of  the  late  Rever 
end  James  Walker,  except  for  its  air  of  invalidism. 
Each  was  remarkable  for  the  precocious  development 
of  his  observing  and  reflecting  powers.  Their  spirit 
ual  as  well  as  their  mental  conditions  were  parallel  in 
many  respects.  Both  had  a  strong  tendency  to  asceti 
cism.  Pascal  wore  a  belt  studded  with  sharp  points 
turned  inward,  which  he  pressed  against  his  body  when 
he  felt  the  aggressive  movements  of  temptation.  He 
was  jealous  of  any  pleasure  derived  from  the  delicacy 
of  his  food,  which  he  regarded  solely  as  the  means  of 
supporting  life.  Edwards  did  not  wear  the  belt  of 
thorns  in  a  material  shape,  but  he  pricked  himself  with 
perpetual  self-accusations,  and  showed  precisely  the 
same  jealousy  about  the  gratification  of  the  palate. 
He  was  spared,  we  may  say  in  parenthesis,  the  living 
to  see  the  republication  in  Boston  of  his  fellow-coun 
tryman,  Count  Rumford's,  essay  "  Of  the  Pleasure  of 
Eating,  and  of  the  Means  that  may  be  employed  for 
increasing  it."  Pascal  and  Edwards  were  alike  sensi 
tive,  pure  in  heart  and  in  life,  profoundly  penetrated 


364       PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD    VOLUME   OP   LITE. 

with  the  awful  meaning  of  human  existence ;  both 
filled  with  a  sense  of  their  own  littleness  and  sinful- 
ness  ;  both  trembling  in  the  presence  of  God  and 
dwelling  much  upon  his  wrath  and  its  future  manifes 
tations  ;  both  singularly  powerful  as  controversialists, 
and  alive  all  over  to  the  gaudia  certaminis,  —  one 
fighting  the  Jesuits  and  the  other  the  Arminians.  They 
were  alike  in  their  retiring  and  melancholy  kind  of 
life.  Pascal  was  a  true  poet  who  did  not  care  to  wear 
the  singing  robes.  As  much  has  been  claimed  for  Ed 
wards  on  the  strength  of  a  passage  here  and  there 
which  shows  sentiment  and  imagination.  But  this  was 
in  his  youthful  days,  and  the  "  little  white  flower  " 
of  his  diary  fades  out  in  his  polemic  treatises,  as  the 
"  star  of  Bethlehem  "  no  longer  blossoms  when  the 
harsh  blades  of  grass  crowd  around  it.  Pascal's  prose 
is  light  and  elastic  everywhere  with  esprit ;  much  of 
that  of  Edwards,  thickened  as  it  is  with  texts  from 
Scripture,  reminds  us  of  the  unleavened  bread  of  the 
Israelite:  holy  it  may  be,  but  heavy  it  certainly  is. 
The  exquisite  wit  which  so  delights  us  in  Pascal  could 
not  be  claimed  for  Edwards  ;  yet  he  could  be  satirical 
in  a  way  to  make  the  gravest  person  smile,  —  as  in  the 
description  of  the  wonderful  animal  the  traveller  tells 
of  as  inhabiting  Terra  del  Fuego,  with  which  he  laughs 
his  opponents  to  scorn  in  his  treatise  on  the  "  Freedom 
of  the  Will."  Both  had  the  same  fondness  for  writ 
ing  in  the  form  of  aphorisms,  —  natural  to  strong 
thinkers,  who  act  like  the  bankers  whose  habit  it  is  to 
sign  checks,  but  not  to  count  out  money,  —  and  both 
not  rarely  selected  the  same  or  similar  subjects  for 
their  brief  utterances. 

Even  in  some  external  conditions  Pascal  and  Ed 
wards  suggest  comparison.     Both  were  greatly  influ- 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  365 

enced  by  devout,  spiritually-minded  women.  Pascal, 
who  died  unmarried,  had  his  two  sisters,  —  Gilberte 
and  Jacqueline,  —  the  first  of  whom,  afterwards  Ma 
dame  Pe*rier,  wrote  the  Memoir  of  her  brother,  so 
simply,  so  sweetly,  that  one  can  hardly  read  it  with 
out  thinking  he  hears  it  in  her  own  tender  woman's 
voice,  —  as  if  she  were  audibly  shaping  the  syllables 
which  are  flowing  through  his  mute  consciousness. 
Edwards's  wife,  Sarah  Pierrepont,  was  the  lady  of 
whom  he  wrote  the  remarkable  account  (cited  by  Mr. 
Bancroft  in  his  article  on  Edwards,  as  it  stands  in 
the  first  edition  of  Appleton's  "  Cyclopaedia  ")  before 
he  had  made  her  acquaintance,  —  she  being  then  only 
thirteen  years  old.  She  was  spiritual  to  exaltation 
and  ecstasy.  To  his  sister  Jerusha,  seven  years  younger 
than  himself,  he  was  tenderly  attached.  She,  too,  was 
of  a  devoutly  religious  character. 

There  were  certain  differences  in  the  midst  of  these 
parallelisms.  Auvergne,  with  its  vine-clad  slopes,  was 
not  the  same  as  Connecticut,  with  its  orchards  of  el 
bowed  apple-trees.  Windsor,  a  pleasant  name,  not 
wanting  in  stately  associations,  sounds  less  romantic 
than  Clennont.  We  think  of  Blaise  and  Jacqueline, 
wandering  in  the  shadow  of  Puy  de  Dome,  and  kneel 
ing  in  the  ancient  cathedral  in  that  venerable  town 
where  the  first  trumpet  of  the  first  crusade  was  blown ; 
and  again  we  see  Jonathan  and  Jerusha  straying  across 
lots  to  Poquaunock,  or  sitting  in  the  cold  church,  side 
by  side  on  the  smileless  Sabbath.  Whether  or  not  Ed 
wards  had  ever  read  Pascal  is  not  shown  by  any  refer 
ence  in  his  writings,  but  there  are  some  rather  curious 
instances  of  similar  or  identical  expressions.  Thus  the 
words  of  his  sermon,  in  which  he  speaks  of  sinners  as 
"  in  the  hands  of  an  angry  God,"  are  identical  in  mean- 


366        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

ing  with  Pascal's  "  dans  les  mains  d'un  Dieu  irrit^." 
His  expression  applied  to  man,  "  a  poor  little  worm," 
sounds  like  a  translation  of  Pascal's  "  chdtif  vrnni>- 
seau."  A  paragraph  of  his  detached  observations 
entitled  "Body  Infinite,"  reminds  one  of  the  second 
paragraph  of  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of  Pascal's 
"  Pense"es."  These  resemblances  are  worth  noting  in 
a  comparison  of  the  two  writers.  Dealing  with  similar 
subjects,  it  is  not  strange  to  find  them  using  similar 
expressions.  But  it  seems  far  from  unlikely  that  fid- 
wards  had  fallen  in  with  a  copy  of  Pascal,  and  bor 
rowed,  perhaps  unconsciously,  something  of  his  way 
of  thinking. 

We  may  hope  that  their  spirits  have  met  long  ago 
in  a  better  world,  for  each  was  a  saintly  being,  who 
might  have  claimed  for  him  the  epithet  applied  to 
Spinoza,  But  if  they  had  met  in  this  world,  Pascal 
would  have  looked  sadly  on  Edwards  as  a  heretic,  and 
Edwards  would  have  looked  sternly  on  Pascal  as  a  pa 
pist.  Edwards,  again,  would  have  scouted  an  Armin- 
ian ;  but  to  Bossuet,  the  great  Bishop  of  Meaux,  a 
Socinian,  even,  was  only  a  developed  Calvinist. 

The  feeling  which  naturally  arises  in  contemplating 
the  character  of  Jonathan  Edwards  is  that  of  deep 
reverence  for  a  man  who  seems  to  have  been  anointed 
from  his  birth ;  who  lived  a  life  pure,  laborious,  self- 
denying,  occupied  with  the  highest  themes,  and  busy 
in  the  highest  kind  of  labor,  —  such  a  life  as  in  another 
church  might  have  given  him  a  place  in  the  "  Acta 
Sanctorum."  We  can  in  part  account  for  what  he 
was  when  we  rememl>er  his  natural  inherited  instincts, 
his  training,  his  faith,  and  the  conditions  by  which  lie 
was  surrounded.  His  ancestors  had  fed  on  sermons 
so  long  that  he  must  have  been  born  with  Scriptural 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  367 

texts  lying  latent  in  his  embryonic  thinking -marrow, 
like  the  undeveloped  picture  in  a  film  of  collodion. 
He  was  bred  in  the  family  of  a  Connecticut  minister 
in  a  town  where  revivals  of  religion  were  of  remarka 
ble  frequency.  His  mother,  it  may  be  suspected,  found 
him  in  brains,  for  she  was  called  the  brighter  of  the 
old  couple  ;  and  the  fact  that  she  did  not  join  the 
church  until  Jonathan  was  twelve  years  old  implies 
that  she  was  a  woman  who  was  not  to  be  hurried  into 
becoming  a  professor  of  religion  simply  because  she 
was  the  wife  of  the  Reverend  Timothy  Edwards. 
His  faith  in  the  literal  inspiration  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  was  implicit;  it  was  built  on  texts, 
as  Venice  and  Amsterdam  are  built  on  piles.  The 
"  parable  of  Eden,"  as  our  noble  Boston  preacher  calls 
it,  was  to  him  a  simple  narrative  of  exact  occurrences. 
The  fruit,  to  taste  which  conferred  an  education,  the 
talking  ophidian,  the  many-centuried  patriarchs,  the 
floating  menagerie  with  the  fauna  of  the  drowning 
earth  represented  on  its  decks,  the  modelling  of  the 
first  woman  about  a  bone  of  the  first  man  —  all  these 
things  were  to  him,  as  to  those  about  him,  as  real 
historical  facts  as  the  building  of  the  Pyramids.  He 
was  surrounded  with  believers  like  himself,  who  held 
the  doctrines  of  Calvinism  in  all  their  rigor.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  saw  the  strongholds  of  his  posi 
tion  threatened  by  the  gradual  approach  or  the  act 
ual  invasion  of  laxer  teachings  and  practices,  so  that 
he  found  himself,  as  he  thought,  forced  into  active  hos 
tilities,  and  soon  learned  his  strength  as  a  combatant, 
and  felt  the  stern  delight  of  the  warrior  as  cham 
pion  of  the  church  militant.  This  may  have  given 
extravagance  to  some  of  his  expressions,  and  at  times 
have  blinded  him  to  the  real  meaning  as  well  as  to  the 


868        PAGES   FROM   AN  OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

practical  effect  of  the  doctrines  he  taught  to  the  good 
people  of  Northampton,  and  gave  to  the  world  in 
pages  over  which  many  a  reader  has  turned  pale  and 
trembled. 

In  order  to  get  an  idea  of  what  the  theological  sys 
tem  is  of  which  he  was  the  great  New  England  expo 
nent,  we  will  take  up  briefly  some  of  its  leading  fea 
tures.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Edwards's 
main  doctrines  agree  with  those  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly's  two  catechisms.  These  same  doctrines  al 
most  assumed  the  character  of  a  state  religion  when 
the  "  Confession  of  Faith  "  of  the  Synod  assembled  in 
Boston,  May  12, 1680,  was  printed  by  an  Order  of  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  passed  May  19  of 
the  same  year.  But  we  are  to  look  at  these  doctrines 
as  Edwards  accepted  and  interpreted  them. 

The  GOD  of  Edwards  is  not  a  Trinity,  but  a  Qua- 
ternity.  The  fourth  Person  is  an  embodied  abstrac 
tion,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Justice.  As  Jupi 
ter  was  governed  by  Fate,  so  Jehovah  is  governed  by 
Justice.  This  takes  precedence  of  all  other  elements 
in  the  composite  Divinity.  Its  province  is  to  demand 
satisfaction,  though  as  its  demand  is  infinite,  it  can 
never  be  satiated.  This  satisfaction  is  derived  from 
the  infliction  of  misery  on  sensitive  beings,  who,  by 
the  fact  of  coming  into  existence  under  conditions  pro 
vided  or  permitted  by  their  Creator,  have  incurred  his 
wrath  and  received  his  curse  as  their  patrimony.  Its 
work,  as  in  the  theology  of  Dante,  is  seen  in  the  con 
struction  and  perpetual  maintenance  of  an  Inferno, 
which  Edwards  mentions  to  ears  polite  and  impolite 
with  an  unsparing  plainness,  emphasis,  and  frequency 
such  as  would  have  contented  the  satirical  Cowper. 
The  familiar  quotation,  — 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  369 

"  Quantum  vertice  ad  auras 
JEtherias,  tantum  radice  ad  Tartara  tendit,"  — 

is  eminently  applicable  to  Edwards's  theology ;  it  flow 
ers  in  heaven,  but  its  roots,  from  which  it  draws  its 
life  and  its  strength,  reach  down  to  the  deepest  depths 
of  heU. 

The  omnipotence  of  Justice  is  needed  in  his  system, 
for  it  is  dealing,  as  was  said  above,  with  infinite  de 
mands,  which  nothing  short  of  it  could  begin  to  meet. 
The  proof  of  this  is  a  very  simple  mathematical  one, 
and  can  be  made  plain  to  the  most  limited  intelligence. 

/Sw,  which  is  the  subject  of  Justice,  gets  its  meas 
ure  by  comparing  it  with  the  excellence  of  the  Being 
whose  law  it  violates.  As  the  Being  is  infinite  in  per 
fections,  every  sin  against  him  acquires  the  character 
of  infinite  magnitude.  "  Justice  "  demands  a  punish 
ment  commensurate  with  its  infinite  dimensions.  This 
is  the  ground  upon  which  the  eternity  of  future  pun 
ishment  is  an  imperative  condition  prescribed  by  "  Jus 
tice  "  to  the  alleged  omnipotence  of  the  Creator.  Who 
and  what  is  the  being  made  subject  to  this  infinite 
penalty  ? 

Man,  as  Edwards  looks  at  him,  is  placed  in  a  very 
singular  condition.  He  has  innumerable  duties  and 
not  the  smallest  right,  or  the  least  claim  on  his  Maker. 
In  this  doctrine  Edwards  differs  from  the  finer  and 
freer  thinker  with  whom  I  have  compared  him.  "  There 
is  a  reciprocal  duty  between  God  and  man,"  is  one  of 
Pascal's  noblest  sayings.  No  such  relation  exists  for 
Edwards ;  and  if  at  any  time  there  seems  a  balance  in 
favor  of  the  creature,  the  sovereignty  of  the  Creator 
is  a  sponge  which  wipes  out  all  and  costs  nothing,  — 
nothing  but  the  misery  of  a  human  being  ;  and  after 
all,  in  the  view  of  the  saints,  which  must  be  correct, 


370       PAGES   FROM  AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

we  are  assured  by  Edwards  that  it  will  all  be  right,  for 
"  the  glory  of  God  will  in  their  estimate  be  of  greater 
consequence  than  the  welfare  of  thousands  and  mill 
ions  of  souls."  Man,  since  Adam's  fall,  is  born  in  a 
state  of  moral  inability,  —  a  kind  of  spiritual  hemi- 
plegia.  He  is  competent,  as  we  have  seen,  to  commit 
an  infinite  amount  of  sin,  but  he  cannot  of  himself 
perform  the  least  good  action.  He  is  hateful  to  his 
Maker,  ex  ojficio,  as  a  human  being.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  Edwards  uses  hard  words  about  such  a  being. 
This  is  a  specimen  from  one  of  those  sermons  to  which 
the  long-suffering  people  of  Northampton  listened  for 
twenty-four  years :  "  You  have  never  loved  God,  who 
is  infinitely  glorious  and  lovely ;  and  why  then  is  God 
under  obligations  to  love  you,  who  are  all  over  de 
formed  and  loathsome  as  a  filthy  worm,  or  rather  a 
hateful  viper  ?  "  And  on  the  very  next  page  he  re 
turns  to  his  epithets  and  comparisons,  paying  his  re 
spects  to  his  fellow-creatures  in  the  following  words : 
"  Seeing  you  thus  disregard  so  great  a  God,  is  it  a  hei 
nous  thing  for  God  to  slight  you,  a  little  wretched, 
despicable  creature  ;  a  worm,  a  mere  nothing  and  less 
than  nothing ;  a  vile  insect  that  has  risen  up  in  con 
tempt  against  the  Majesty  of  heaven  and  earth?" 
We  can  hardly  help  remarking  just  here  that  this  kind 
of  language  will  seem  to  most  persons  an  unwholesome 
sort  of  rhetoric  for  a  preacher  to  indulge  in ;  not  fa 
vorable  to  the  sweetness  of  his  own  thoughts,  and  not 
unlikely  to  produce  irritation  in  some  of  his  more  ex 
citable  hearers.  But  he  was  led,  as  it  will  soon  appear, 
into  the  use  of  expressions  still  more  fitted  to  disturb 
the  feelings  of  all  persons  of  common  sensibility,  and 
especially  of  the  fathers  and  mothers  who  listened  to 
him.  Such  was  Edwards's  estimate  of  humanity. 


JONATHAN    EDWARDS.  371 

His  opinion  of  the  Devil  is  hardly  more  respectful 
than  that  which  he  entertains  of  man.  "  Though  the 
Devil  be  exceedingly  crafty  and  subtle,"  he  says,  "  yet 
he  is  one  of  the  greatest  fools  and  blockheads  in  the 
world,  as  the  subtlest  of  wicked  men  are."  But  for 
all  he  was  such  a  fool,  he  has  played  a  very  important 
part,  Edwards  thinks,  in  the  great  events  of  the 
world's  history.  He  was  in  a  dreadful  rage  just  before 
the  flood.  He  brought  about  the  peopling  of  America 
by  leading  men  and  women  there  so  as  to  get  them 
out  of  the  way  of  the  gospel.  Thus  he  was,  according 
to  Edwards,  the  true  Pilgrim  Father  of  the  New 
World.  He  himself  had  seen  the  Devil  prevail  against 
two  revivals  of  religion  in  this  country.  The  personal 
presence  of  the  great  enemy  of  mankind  was  as  real 
to  Edwards  as  the  spectral  demons  in  the  woods  about 
Gloucester,  which  the  soldiers  fired  at  but  could  not 
hit,  were  to  Cotton  Mather  and  his  reverend  corre 
spondent.  How  the  specialty  of  the  archfiend  differed 
from  that  of  Edwards's  "  Justice  "  is  not  perfectly 
clear,  except  that  one  executes  what  the  other  orders, 
the  Evil  Angel  finding  pleasure  in  inflicting  torture, 
and  "  Justice  "  attaining  the  end  known  to  theologians 
as  "  satisfaction  "  in  seeing  it  inflicted.  And  as  Ed 
wards  couples  his  supreme  principle  with  an  epithet 
corresponding  to  a  well  -  known  human  passion,  — 
speaking  of  it  as  "  revenging  justice,"  —  we  can  have 
some  idea  of  what  "  satisfaction  "  means  in  the  light 
of  the  common  saying  that  "  revenge  is  sweet ; "  but 
the  explanation  does  not  leave  the  soul  in  seraphic 
harmony  with  the  music  of  the  spheres  or  the  key-note 
of  its  own  being. 

It  will  be  enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  refer 
briefly  to  the  leading  doctrines  of  several  of  Edwards's 
special  works. 


372       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

In  his  treatise,  "  The  Great  Christian  Doctrine  of 
Original  Sin  defended,"  he  teaches  that  "  God,  in  his 
constitution  with  Adam,  dealt  with  him  as  a  public 
person,  —  as  the  head  of  the  human  species,  —  and 
had  respect  to  his  posterity,  as  included  in  him." 
Again  :  "  God  dealing  with  Adam  as  the  head  of  his 
posterity  (as  has  been  shown)  and  treating  them  as 
one,  he  deals  with  his  posterity  as  having  all  sinned 
in  him."  There  was  always  a  difficulty  in  dealing  with 
the  relation  of  infants  to  the  divine  government.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  Edwards  would  have  approved  of 
the  leniency  of  their  sentence  in  Michael  Wiggles- 
worth's  "  Day  of  Doom,"  in  which  the  comparatively 
comfortable  quarters  of 

"  The  easiest  room  in  hell  " 

are  assigned  to  the  little  creatures.  Edwards  argues 
against  the  charitable  supposition  that,  though  sin  is 
truly  imputed  to  infants,  so  that  they  are  as  a  conse 
quence,  exposed  to  a  proper  punishment,  yet  that  all 
Adam's  guilt  not  being  imputed  to  them,  they  might 
be  let  off  with  only  temporal  death  or  annihilation. 
He  maintains,  on  the  contrary,  "  that  none  can,  in 
good  consistence  with  themselves,  own  a  real  imputa 
tion  of  the  guilt  of  Adam's  first  sin  to  his  posterity, 
without  owning  that  they  are  justly  treated  as  sinners, 
truly  guilty,  and  children  of  wrath,  on  that  account ; 
nor  unless  they  allow  a  just  imputation  of  the  whole 
of  the  evil  of  that  transgression,  at  least  all  that  per 
tains  to  that  act,  as  a  full  and  complete  violation  of 
the  covenant  which  God  had  established  ;  even  as 
much  as  if  each  one  of  mankind  had  the  like  covenant 
established  with  him  singly,  and  had,  by  the  like  di 
rect  and  full  act  of  rebellion,  violated  it  himself."  The 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  373 

little  albuminous  automaton  is  not  sent  into  the  world 
without  an  inheritance.  Every  infant  of  the  human 
race  is  entitled  to  one  undivided  share  of  the  guilt  and 
consequent  responsibility  of  the  Trustee  to  whom  the 
Sovereign  had  committed  its  future,  and  who  invested 
it  in  a  fraudulent  concern. 

By  the  "  Work  of  Redemption,"  of  which  Edwards 
wrote  an  elaborate  history,  a  few  of  the  human  race 
have  been  exempted  from  the  infinite  penalties  conse 
quent  upon  being  born  upon  this  planet,  the  atmos 
phere  of  which  is  a  slow  poison,  killing  everybody 
after  a  few  score  of  years.  But  "  the  bulk  of  man 
kind  "  go  eventually  to  the  place  prepared  for  them 
by  "  Justice,"  of  which  place  and  its  conditions  Ed 
wards  has  given  full  and  detailed  descriptions. 

The  essay  on  "  God's  Chief  End  in  Creation " 
reaches  these  two  grand  results :  "  God  aims  at  satisfy 
ing  justice  in  the  eternal  damnation  of  sinners,  which 
will  be  satisfied  with  their  damnation  considered  no 
otherwise  than  with  regard  to  its  eternal  duration. 
God  aims  to  satisfy  his  infinite  grace  or  benevolence 
by  the  bestowment  of  a  good  infinitely  valuable  be 
cause  eternal." 

His  idea  of  the  "  Nature  of  True  Virtue,"  as  ex 
pressed  in  his  treatise  with  that  title,  is  broad  enough 
for  the  TO  KaXov  of  the  most  ancient  or  the  most  modern 
philosophy.  A  principle  of  virtue  is,  according  to  Ed 
wards,  "  union  of  heart  to  being,  simply  considered ; 
which  implies  a  disposition  to  benevolence  to  being, 
in  general."  This  definition  has  been  variously  esti 
mated  by  philosophical  critics.  There  is  something  in 
it  which  reminds  one  of  the  "  ether  "  of  the  physicists. 
This  is  a  conceivable  if  not  a  necessary  medium,  but 
no  living  thing  we  know  anything  about  can  live  in 


874        PAGES    FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

it,  can  fly  or  breathe  in  it,  and  we  must  leave  it  to 
the  angels,  with  whose  physiology  we  are  not  ac 
quainted. 

The  full  title  of  the  work  on  which  Edwards's  repu 
tation  as  a  thinker  mainly  rests  is,  "A  careful  and 
strict  Inquiry  into  the  modern  prevailing  notions  of 
that  Freedom  of  the  Will  which  is  supposed  to  be  es 
sential  to  moral  agency,  virtue  and  vice,  reward  and 
punishment,  praise  and  blame. " 

Edwards  thinks  it  necessary  to  meet  those  who  ob 
ject  to  reasonings  like  his  that  they  run  "  into  nice 
scholastic  distinctions  and  abstruse  metaphysical  sub 
tleties,  and  set  these  in  opposition  to  common-sense." 
But  an  essay  which  Robert  Hall  read  and  re-read  with 
intense  interest  before  he  was  nine  years  old  must 
have  a  good  deal  in  it  which  comes  within  the  compass 
of  moderate  understandings.  The  truth  is,  his  argu 
ment,  unfolded  with  infinite  patience  and  admirable 
ingenuity,  is  nothing  but  a  careful  evolution  of  the  im 
possibilities  involved  in  the  idea  of  that  old  scholastic 
thesis  best  known  in  the  popular  form  of  the  puzzlo 
called  in  learned  books  V  dne  de  Buridan,  and  in  com 
mon  speech  "the  ass  between  two  bundles  of  hay," 
—  or  as  Leibnitz  has  it,  between  two  pastures.  A 
more  dignified  statement  of  it  is  to  be  found  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  fourth  canto  of  Dante's  "  Paradise." 
The  passage  is  thus  given  in  Mr.  Longfellow's  transla 
tion  :  — 

"  Between  two  viands  equally  removed 
And  tempting,  a  free  man  would  die  of  hunger, 
Ere  either  he  could  bring  unto  his  teeth." 

The  object  of  Edwards  was  to  prove  that  such  a  state 
of  equilibrium,  supposed  by  his  Arminian  opponents 
to  be  necessary  to  account  for  human  freedom  and  r«  - 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  375 

sponsibility,  does  not  and  cannot  exist.  Leibnitz  had 
already  denied  its  possibility  without  any  express  act 
of  the  Creator. 

The  reader  of  this  celebrated  treatise  may  well  ad 
mire  the  sleuth-hound-like  sagacity  and  tenacity  with 
which  the  keen-scented  reasoner  follows  the  devious 
tracks  of  his  adversaries ;  yet  he  can  hardly  help  feel 
ing  that  a  vast  number  of  words  have  been  expended 
in  proving  over  and  over  again  a  proposition  which,  as 
put  by  the  great  logician,  is  self-evident.  In  fact,  Ed 
wards  has  more  than  once  stated  his  own  argument 
with  a  contemptuous  brevity,  as  if  he  felt  that  he  had 
been  paying  out  in  farthings  what  he  could  easily 
hand  us  in  the  form  of  a  shilling.  Here  is  one  of  his 
condensed  statements  :  — 

'*  There  is  no  high  degree  of  refinement  and  abstruse  specula 
tion  in  determining  that  a  thing  is  not  before  it  is,  and  so  cannot 
be  the  cause  of  itself  ;  or  that  the  first  act  of  free  choice  has  not 
another  act  of  free  choice  going  before  that  to  excite  or  direct 
it ;  or  in  determining  that  no  choice  can  be  made  while  the  mind 
remains  in  a  state  of  absolute  indifference  ;  that  preference  and 
equilibrium  never  co-exist ;  and  that  therefore  no  choice  is  made 
in  a  state  of  liberty  consisting  in  indifference  ;  and  that  so  far  as 
the  Will  is  determined  by  motives,  exhibiting  and  operating  pre 
vious  to  the  act  of  the  Will,  so  far  it  is  not  determined  by  the  act 
of  the  Will  itself ;  that  nothing  can  begin  to  be,  which  before 
was  not,  without  a  cause,  or  some  antecedent  ground  or  reason 
why  it  then  begins  to  be  ;  that  effects  depend  on  their  causes, 
and  are  connected  with  them  ;  that  virtue  is  not  the  worse,  nor 
sin  the  better,  for  the  strength  of  inclination  with  which  it  is 
practised,  and  the  difficulty  which  thence  arises  of  doing  other 
wise  ;  that  when  it  is  already  infallibly  known  that  the  thing  will 
be,  it  is  not  contingent  whether  it  will  ever  be  or  no  ;  or  that  it 
can  In-  truly  said,  notwithstanding,  that  it  is  not  necessary  it 
should  be,  but  it  either  may  be,  or  may  not  be." 

This  subject  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  which  Mil- 


376       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF    LIFE. 

ton's  fallen  angels  puzzled  over,  and  found  themselves 

"  In  wandering  mazes  lost,"  — 
of  which  Chaucer's  "  Nonne's  Preeste  "  says,  — 

**  That  in  scole  is  gret  altercation 
In  this  matere  and  gret  disputison, 
And  hath  ben  of  an  hundred  thousand  mm."  - 

is  one  which  we  can  hardly  touch  without  becoming 
absorbed  in  its  contemplation.  We  are  all  experts  in 
the  matter  of  volition.  We  may  have  read  much  or 
little ;  we  may  have  made  it  a  special  subject  of 
thought  or  not :  each  of  us  has  at  any  rate  been  using 
his  will  during  every  waking  hour  of  his  life,  and  must 
have  some  practical  acquaintance  with  its  working 
within  him. 

The  drift  of  Edwards's  argument  is  to  show  that, 
though  we  are  free  to  follow  our  will,  we  are  not  free 
to  form  an  act  of  volition,  but  that  this  of  necessity 
obeys  the  strongest  motive.  As  the  natural  man  — 
that  is  every  man  since  the  fall  of  Adam  —  is  corrupt 
in  all  his  tendencies,  it  follows  that  bis  motives,  and 
consequently  his  moral  volitions,  are  all  evil  until 
changed  by  grace,  which  is  a  free  gift  to  such  as  are 
elected  from  eternity  according  to  God's  good  pleas 
ure.  "  The  doctrine  of  a  self -determining  will  as  the 
ground  of  all  moral  good  and  evil  tends  to  prevent 
any  proper  exercises  of  faith  in  God  and  Christ  in  the 
affair  of  our  salvation,  as  it  tends  to  prevent  all  de 
pendence  upon  them." 

In  spite  of  any  general  assertions  of  Edwards  to  the 
contrary,  we  find  our  wills  tied  up  hand  and  foot  in 
the  logical  propositions  which  he  knots  inextricably 
about  them  ;  and  yet  when  we  lay  down  the  book,  we 
feel  as  if  there  was  something  left  free  after  all.  We 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  377 

cannot  help  saying  E pur  si  muove.  We  are  disposed 
to  settle  the  matter  as  magisterially  as  Dr.  Johnson 
did.  "  Sir,"  said  he,  "  we  know  our  will  is  free,  and 
there's  an  end  on  't." 

Not  so  certainly  do  we  know  this,  perhaps,  as 
the  great  dogmatist  affirms.  "A  wooden  top,"  says 
Hobbes,  "  that  is  lashed  by  the  boys,  and  runs  about, 
sometimes  to  one  wall,  sometimes  to  another,  some 
times  spinning,  sometimes  hitting  men  on  the  shins,  if 
it  were  sensible  of  its  own  motion  would  think  it  pro 
ceeded  from  its  own  will,  unless  it  felt  what  lashed  it. 
And  is  a  man  any  wiser  when  he  runs  to  one  place  for 
a  benefice,  to  another  for  a  bargain,  and  troubles  the 
world  with  writing  errors  and  requiring  answers,  be 
cause  he  thinks  he  does  it  without  other  cause  than  his 
own  will,  and  seeth  not  what  are  the  lashings  that 
cause  that  will  ?  "  And  in  the  same  way  Leibnitz 
speaks  of  the  magnetic  needle  :  if  it  took  pleasure  in 
turning  to  the  north,  it  would  suppose  itself  to  be  act 
ing  independently,  not  knowing  anything  of  the  mag 
netic  currents. 

So  far,  then,  all  is,  or  at  least  may  be,  purely  me 
chanical  and  necessitated,  in  spite  of  our  feeling  to  the 
contrary.  Kant  solves  the  problem  by  taking  the  will 
out  of  the  series  of  phenomena,  and  exempting  it  as  a 
noumenon  from  the  empirical  laws  of  the  phenomenal 
world,  —  from  the  conditions  of  cause  and  effect,  as 
they  exist  in  time.  In  this  way  he  arrives  at  his 
"categorical  imperative,"  the  supreme  "ought,"  which 
he  recognizes  as  the  moral  legislator.  His  doctrine  is 
satirically  stated  by  Julius  Muller  thus :  "  Kant  im 
putes  to  man,  since  he  will  make  him  entirely  his  own 
lawgiver,  the  contradictory  task  of  separating  himself 
from  himself  in  order  to  subject  himself  to  himself." 


378 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  Kant  coines  down  virtually  to 
the  level  of  scepticism,  if  not  of  materialism,  in  the  fol 
lowing  explanatory  note,  which  makes  the  text  little 
better  than  a  promise  to  pay  without  a  signature  :  — 

"  The  real  morality  of  actions,  their  merit  or  demerit,  and  even 
that  of  our  own  conduct,  is  completely  unknown  to  us.  Our  es 
timates  can  relate  only  to  their  empirical  character.  How  much 
is  the  result  of  the  action  of  free-will,  how  much  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  nature  and  to  blameless  error,  or  to  a  happy  constitution  of 
temperament  (merito  fortune*),  no  one  can  discover,  nor,  for  this 
reason,  determine  with  perfect  justice." 

Our  distinguished  fellow-countryman,  Mr.  Hazard, 
follows  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke  in  recognizing  in  man  the 
power  of  determining  his  own  effort,  in  the  act  of  voli 
tion,  without  being  first  acted  upon  by  any  extrinsic 
power  or  force.  Man  is  for  him  a  "  creative  first 
cause,"  an  independent  power,  as  truly  creating  the 
future  in  the  sphere  of  the  finite  as  God  himself  in  the 
sphere  of  the  infinite. 

Physiological  psychology  has  taken  up  the  problem 
of  the  will  as  coming  under  the  general  laws  of  life. 
Cousin  says  of  Hartley,  that  his  "  was  the  first  attempt 
to  join  the  study  of  intellectual  man  to  that  of  physi 
cal  man."  Whether  this  be  strictly  true  or  not,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  Hartley  gave  a  clear  account  of  many 
of  those  automatic  actions  since  grouped  as  belonging 
to  the  reflex  function ;  and  that,  leaving  out  his  hy 
pothesis  of  vibrations,  his  account  of  the  development 
of  volition  from  automatism  in  the  infant  is  among 
the  earliest  —  if  not  the  earliest  —  of  the  efforts  to 
show  the  transition  from  involuntary  to  voluntary  ac 
tion.  Johannes  Miiller  followed  in  the  same  direction, 
and  from  the  day  when  Galvani  first  noticed  the 
twitching  of  a  frog's  hind  legs,  the  reflex  function  has 


JONATHAN    EDWARDS.  379 

been  followed  upward  farther  and  farther  until  it  ap 
pears  in  the  "  unconscious  cerebration  "  of  Dr.  Car 
penter,  and  the  localization  of  speech  and  certain 
special  movements  in  certain  portions  of  the  brain. 
Our  physiological  psychology  is  looking  to  the  vivisec- 
tionists  and  the  pathologists  for  help  in  finding  the  re 
lation  between  the  mental  and  moral  faculties  and  the 
nervous  centres  ;  to  learn  from  them  the  connection  of 
living  circuits  and  batteries  ;  possibly,  not  probably,  to 
fix  upon  some  particular  portion  of  the  brain  where 
the  will  shall  be  found  really  enthroned,  as  Descartes 
vainly  fancied  that  the  soul  is  in  the  pineal  gland. 

As  the  study  of  the  individual  reduces  his  seem 
ingly  self-determined  actions  more  and  more  to  reflex 
action,  to  mechanism,  in  short,  so  we  find  that  the 
study  of  mankind  in  communities,  which  constitutes 
history,  resolves  itself  more  and  more  into  manifesta 
tions  of  the  same  reflex  function.  Why  else  does  his 
tory  "  repeat  itself,"  but  that  communities  of  men, 
like  those  of  bees  and  ants,  act  in  the  same  way  under 
the  same  conditions  ?  And  in  the  last  analysis,  what 
are  the  laws  of  human  nature  but  a  generalized  ex 
pression  of  the  fact  that  every  organ  obeys  its  proper 
stimulus,  and  every  act  of  volition  follows  its  motive 
as  inevitably  as  the  weight  falls  if  unsupported,  and 
the  spring  recoils  if  bent  ? 

The  more  we  study  the  will  in  the  way  of  analysis, 
the  more  strictly  does  it  appear  to  be  determined  by 
the  infinitely  varied  conditions  of  the  individual.  At 
the  bottom  of  all  these  lies  the  moral  "  personal  equa 
tion  "  of  each  human  being.  Suppose  sin  were  always 
literally  red,  —  as  it  is  in  the  figurative  expressions, 
"  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,"  "  though  they  be 
red  like  crimson,"  —  in  that  case^  it  is  very  certain 


380        PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

that  many  persons  would  be  unable  to  distinguish  sin 
L-om  virtue,  if  we  suppose  virtue  to  have  a  color  also, 
and  that  color  to  be  green.  There  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  certain  persons  are  born  more  or  less 
completely  blind  to  moral  distinctions,  as  others  are 
born  color-blind.  Many  examples  of  this  kind  may  be 
found  in  the  "  Psychologic  Naturelle  "  of  M.  Prosper 
Despine,  and  our  own  criminal  records  would  furnish 
notable  instances  of  such  imperfect  natures.  We  are 
getting  to  be  predestinarians  as  much  as  Edwards  or 
Calvin  was,  only  instead  of  universal  corruption  of 
nature  derived  from  Adam,  we  recognize  inherited 
congenital  tendencies,  —  some  good,  some  bad,  —  for 
which  the  subject  of  them  is  in  no  sense  responsible. 
Edwards  maintains  that,  in  spite  of  his  doctrine, 
"  man  is  entirely,  perfectly,  and  unspeakably  different 
from  a  machine,  in  that  he  has  reason  and  understand 
ing,  with  a  faculty  of  will,  and  so  is  capable  of  voli 
tion  and  choice  :  in  that  his  will  is  guided  by  the  dic 
tates  or  views  of  his  understanding ;  and  in  that  his 
external  actions  and  behavior,  and  in  many  respects 
also  his  thoughts  and  the  exercises  of  his  mind,  are 
subject  to  his  will."  But  all  this  only  mystified  his 
people,  and  the  practical  rural  comment  was  in  the 
well-known  satirical  saying,  "  You  can  and  you  can't, 
you  shall  and  you  shan't,"  and  so  forth,  —  the  epigram 
that  stung  to  death  a  hundred  sermons  based  on  the  at 
tempt  to  reconcile  slavery  to  a  depraved  nature,  on  the 
one  hand,  with  freedom  to  sin  and  responsibility  for 
what  could  not  be  helped,  on  the  other. 

It  is  as  hard  to  leave  this  subject  without  attempting 
to  help  in  clearing  it  up  as  it  is  to  pass  a  cairn  without 
the  desire  of  throwing  a  stone  upon  it.  This  impulse 
must  excuse  the  following  brief  excursion. 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  381 

In  spite  of  the  strongest-motive  necessitarian  doc 
trine,  we  do  certainly  have  a  feeling,  amounting  to  a 
working  belief,  that  we  are  free  to  choose  before  we 
have  made  our  choice. 

We  have  a  sense  of  difficulty  overcome  by  effort  in 
many  acts  of  choice. 

We  have  a  feeling  in  retrospect,  amounting  to  a 
practical  belief,  that  we  could  have  left  undone  the 
things  that  we  have  done,  and  that  we  could  have  done 
the  things  that  we  ought  to  have  done  and  did  not  do, 
and  we  accuse  or  else  excuse  ourselves  accordingly. 

Suppose  this  belief  to  be  a  self-deception,  as  we 
have  seen  that  Hobbes  and  Leibnitz  suggest  it  may 
be,  "  a  deceiving  of  mankind  by  God  himself,"  as  Ed 
wards  accuses  Lord  Kaimes  of  maintaining,  still  this 
instinctive  belief  in  the  power  of  moral  choice  in  itself 
constitutes  a  powerful  motive.  Our  thinking  ourselves 
free  is  the  key  to  our  whole  moral  nature.  "  Possu- 
mus  quia  posse  videmur."  We  can  make  a  difficult 
choice  because  we  think  we  can.  Happily,  no  reason 
ing  can  persuade  us  out  of  this  belief;  happily,  in 
deed,  for  virtue  rests  upon  it,  education  assumes  and 
develops  it,  law  pronounces  its  verdict  and  the  minis 
ters  of  the  law  execute  its  mandates  on  the  strength  of 
it.  Make  us  out  automata  if  you  will,  but  we  are  au 
tomata  which  cannot  help  believing  that  they  do  their 
work  well  or  ill  as  they  choose,  that  they  wind  them 
selves  up  or  let  themselves  run  down  by  a  power  not 
in  the  weights  or  springs. 

On  the  whole,  we  can  afford  to  leave  the  question  of 
liberty  and  necessity  where  Edwards  leaves  that  of  our 
belief  in  the  existence  of  the  material  universe  :  — 

"  Though  we  suppose  that  the  Material  Universe  is  absolutely 
dependent  on  Idea,  yet  we  may  speak  in  the  old  way  and  as  prop 
erly  and  truly  as  ever." 


382       PAGES    FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

"  It  is  just  all  one  as  to  any  benefit  or  advantage,  any  end  that 
we  can  suppose  was  proposed  by  the  Creator,  as  if  the  Material 
Universe  were  existent  in  the  same  manner  as  is  vulgarly  thought." 

And  so  we  can  say  that,  after  all  the  arguments  of 
the  metaphysicians,  all  the  experiments  of  the  physi 
ologists,  all  the  uniform  averages  of  statisticians,  it  is 
just  all  one  as  to  any  benefit  or  advantage  as  if  a  real 
self-determining  power,  and  real  responsibility  for  our 
acts  of  moral  choice  were  existent  in  the  same  manner 
as  is  vulgarly  thought. 

The  "  Treatise  on  Original  Sin  "  deals  with  that 
subject  in  the  usual  mediaeval  style.  As  a  specimen 
of  what  we  may  call  theological  sharp  practice,  the 
reader  may  take  the  following  passage.  Edwards  is 
arguing  against  the  supposition  that  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin  implies,  — 

"  That  nature  must  be  corrupted  by  some  positive  influence,  — 
4  something  by  some  means  or  other  infused  into  the  human  na 
ture  ;  some  quality  or  other,  not  from  the  choice  of  our  minds, 
but  like  a  taint,  tincture,  or  infection,  altering  the  natural  constitu 
tion,  faculties,  and  dispositions  of  our  souls.  That  sin  and  evil 
dispositions  are  IMPLANTED  in  the  fcetus  in  the  womb.'  Whereas 
our  doctrine  neither  implies  nor  infers  any  such  thing.  In  order 
to  account  for  a  sinful  corruption  of  nature,  yea,  a  total  native 
depravity  of  the  heart  of  man,  there  is  not  the  least  need  of  sup 
posing  any  evil  quality  infused,  implanted,  or  wrought  into  the  na 
ture  of  man,  by  any  positive  cause,  or  influence  whatsoever,  cither 
from  God,  or  the  creature  ;  or  of  supposing  that  man  is  conceived 
and  born  with  A  fountain  of  evil  in  his  heart,  such  as  is  anything 
properly  positive.  I  think  a  little  attention  to  the  nature  of  things 
will  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  any  impartial,  considerate  inquirer 
that  the  absence  of  positive  good  principles,  and  so  the  withhold 
ing  of  a  special  divine  influence  to  impart  and  maintain  those 
good  principles  —  leaving  the  common  natural  principles  of  self- 
love,  natural  appetite,  etc.,  to  themselves,  without  the  govern 
ment  of  superior  divine  principles  —  will  certainly  be  followed 
with  the  corruption,  yea,  the  total  corruption  of  the  heart,  with- 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  383 

out  occasion  for  any  positive  influence  at  all :  and  that  it  was  thus 
in  fact  that  corruption  of  nature  came  on  Adam,  immediately  on 
his  fall,  and  comes  on  all  his  posterity,  as  sinning  in  him,  and  fall 
ing  with  him." 

The  archbishop  did  not  poison  Ugolino  and  his 
boys,  —  he  only  withheld  food  from  them.  We  will 
let  Julius  M tiller  expose  the  fallacy :  "  But  even  by 
giving  this  turn  to  the  question,  the  idea  cannot  be 
avoided  of  an  implantation  of  the  moral  corruption 
in  human  nature  by  a  Divine  causality,  as  directly 
contradicting  the  religious  axiom  that  God  cannot  be 
the  author  of  sin ;  for  if  from  his  Divine  withdraw- 
ment  the  origination  of  the  corrupt  nature  necessarily 
follows,  then  the  former  is  just  a  cause  of  the  latter." 
And  to  the  same  effect  Professor  Fisher  allows  that  if 
God  withdraws  from  the  soul  the  grace  without  which 
it  cannot  but  sin,  "  it  is  vain  to  urge  that  the  act  of 
God  is  of  a  negative  character.  .  .  .  We  do  not  see 
how  the  conclusion  can  be  avoided  that  God  is  the  au 
thor  of  sin." 

There  are  conceptions  which  are  not  only  false,  not 
only  absurd,  but  which  act  as  disorganizing  forces  in 
the  midst  of  the  thinking  apparatus.  They  injure  the 
texture  of  the  mind  as  a  habit  of  gross  sin  injures  the 
type  of  the  character.  Such  is  the  idea  that  a  de 
scendant  of  Adam  can  in  any  way  be  guilty  or  reck 
oned  guilty  of  his  sin.  He  may  suffer  for  it,  but  that 
is  his  misfortune,  and  Justice  should  account  to  him 
for  his  suffering.  "  I  could  not  help  it "  disarms 
vengeance  and  renders  Tartarus  a  wanton  luxury  of 
cruelty.  Edwards's  powerful  intellect  was  filled  with 
disorganizing  conceptions,  like  that  which  makes  all 
mankind  sinners  thousands  of  years  before  they  were 
born. 


384       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

A  chief  ground  of  complaint  against  Edwards  is 
his  use  of  language  with  reference  to  the  future  of 
mankind  which  shocks  the  sensibilities  of  a  later  gen 
eration.  There  is  no  need  of  going  into  all  the  plans 
and  machinery  of  his  "  Inferno,"  as  displayed  in  his 
sermons.  We  can  endure  much  in  the  mediaeval  verse 
of  Dante  which  we  cannot  listen  to  in  the  compara 
tively  raw  and  recent  prose  of  Edwards.  Mr.  John 
Morley  speaks  in  one  of  his  Essays  of  "  the  horrors 
of  what  is  perhaps  the  most  frightful  idea  that  has 
ever  corroded  human  character,  —  the  idea  of  eternal 
punishment."  Edwards  has  done  his  best  to  burn 
these  horrors  into  the  souls  of  men.  A  new  organic 
and  a  new  inorganic  chemistry  are  brought  into  the 
laboratory  where  "  the  bulk  of  mankind  "  have  been 
conveyed  for  vivisection  or  vivicombustion.  The  body 
is  to  possess  the  most  exquisite  sensibilities,  is  to  be 
pervaded  in  every  fibre  and  particle  by  the  fire,  and 
the  fire  is  to  be  such  that  our  lime-kilns  and  iron-fur 
naces  would  be  refrigerators  in  comparison  with  the 
mildest  of  the  torture-chambers.  Here  the  great  ma 
jority  of  mankind  are  to  pass  the  days  and  nights,  if 
such  terms  are  applicable  to  it,  of  a  sleepless  eternity. 
And  all  this  apparatus  of  torture  in  full  operation  for 
**  four  thousand  years,"  none  of  its  victims  warned  of 
it  or  knowing  anything  about  it  until  the  "good  news" 
came  which  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  — 
an  immortality  of  misery  to  "  the  bulk  of  mankind  ! " 

But  Edwards  can  be  partially  excused  for  doing  vio 
lence  to  human  feelings.  It  is  better,  perhaps,  to  con 
fess  that  he  was  an  imitator  and  a  generous  borrower 
than  to  allow  him  the  credit  of  originality  at  the  ex 
pense  of  his  better  human  attributes.  Very  good  men 
are  sometimes  very  forgetful.  The  Rev.  Thomas  Scott 


JONATHAN    EDWARDS.  385 

was  a  very  good  man,  no  doubt,  in  many  respects,  but 
that  excellent  old  friend  of  the  writer,  the  late  learned 
and  amiable  Dr.  Jenks,  says  in  an  Editor's  Notice,  to 
be  found  in  the  fifth  volume  of  "  The  Comprehensive 
Commentary  "  :  "  Nothing  but  such  a  diligent  com 
parison  as  this  work  necessarily  required,  of  the  labors 
of  Henry  and  Scott,  could  have  shown  how  greatly  the 
latter  was  indebted  to  the  former,  especially  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  and  the  lack  of  acknowledgment  can  be 
accounted  for,  and  reconciled  with  principle,  only  by 
the  consideration,  that,  possibly,  if  it  had  been  made 
in  every  case  where  it  was  due,  the  work  would  have 
been  less  acceptable  to  persons  of  the  '  establishment ' 
whom  the  writer  was  desirous  to  influence  favorably." 
Was  ever  an  indictment  drawn  in  language  more  ten 
derly  modulated  ? 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Gillespie  of  Scotland,  writing  to  Ed 
wards,  asks  him,  "  Are  the  works  of  the  great  Mr. 
Boston  known  in  your  country,  namely,  the  '  Fourfold 
State  of  Man  '  ?  "  etc.  To  which  Edwards  replies : 
"  As  to  Mr.  Boston's  '  View  of  the  Covenant  of  Grace,' 
1  have  had  some  opportunity  to  examine  it,  and  I 
confess  I  do  not  understand  the  scheme  of  thought 
presented  in  that  book.  I  have  read  his  '  Fourfold 
State  of  Man,'  and  liked  it  exceedingly  well.  I  think 
in  that  he  shows  himself  to  be  a  truly  great  divine." 

The  Rev.  Thomas  Boston  of  Ettrick,  Scotland,  — 
an  Ettrick  shepherd  very  different  from  "Jamie  the 
Poeter,"  as  James  Hogg  was  called  by  his  rustic 
neighbors,  —  may  be  remembered  as  one  of  the  au 
thors  largely  cited  by  Mr.  Buckle  in  his  arraignment 
of  the  barbarous  theology  of  Scotland.  He  died  in 
1732,  but  the  edition  before  the  present  writer,  though 
without  date,  is  evidently  a  comparatively  recent  one, 


386       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

and  bears  the  impress,  "  Philadelphia :  Presbyterian 
Board  of  Publication." 

Something  of  the  mild  surprise  which  honest  old 
Dr.  Jenks  experienced  when  he  found  the  property  of 
Matthew  Henry  on  the  person  of  Thomas  Scott  may 
be  felt  by  scrupulous  individuals  at  recognizing  a  large 
part  of  the  awful  language,  with  the  use  of  which  Ed 
wards  is  often  reproached,  as  the  property  of  Thomas 
Boston.  There  is  no  mistaking  the  identity  of  many 
of  these  expressions  and  images.  Some,  besides  the 
Scriptural  ones,  may  have  been  borrowed  by  both  writ 
ers  from  a  common  source,  but  there  is  a  considerable 
number  which  confess  their  parentage  in  the  most  un 
equivocal  way.  The  argument  for  infinite  punishment 
is  the  same  ;  the  fiery  furnace  the  same*;  the  hair  sus 
pending  a  living  soul  over  it  the  same ;  reptiles  and 
other  odious  images  belong  to  both  alike ;  infinite  du 
ration  is  described  in  similar  language  ;  the  natural 
affections  no  longer  exist :  the  mother  will  not  pity 
the  daughter  in  these  flames,  says  Boston ;  parents, 
says  Edwards,  will  sing  hallelujahs  as  they  see  their 
children  driven  into  the  flames  where  they  are  to  lie 
"  roasting  "  (Edwards)  and  "  roaring  "  (Boston)  for 
ever.  This  last  word,  it  may  be  remarked,  has  an  ill 
sound  on  the  lips  of  a  theologian ;  it  looks  as  if  he 
were  getting  out  of  the  reach  of  human  sympathies. 
It  sounds  very  harshly  when  Cotton  Mather  says  of  a 
poor  creature  who  was  accidentally  burned  to  death,  — 
being,  it  seems,  a  little  in  liquor  at  the  time,  poor  soul ! 
— that  she  "  went  roaring  out  of  one  fire  into  another." 

The  true  source  of  Edwards's  Dante-like  descriptions 
of  his  "Inferno  "  is  but  too  obvious.  Whatever  claim 
to  the  character  of  a  poet  is  founded  on  the  lurid  brill 
iancy  of  these  passages  may  as  well  be  reconsidered 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  387 

in  the  red  light  of  Thomas  Boston's  rhetorical  autos- 

O 

da-f£.  But  wherever  such  pictures  are  found,  at  first 
or  second  hand,  they  are  sure  causes  of  unbelief,  and 
liable  to  produce  hatred  not  only  of  those  who  teach 
them,  but  of  their  whole  system  of  doctrines.  "  Who 
are  these  cruel  old  clerical  Torquemadas,"  ask  the  un 
godly,  "  who  are  rolling  the  tortures  of  ourselves,  our 
wives  and  children,  under  their  tongues  like  a  sweet 
morsel  ?  "  The  denunciations  of  the  pulpit  came  so 
near  the  execrations  of  the  street  in  their  language, 
and  sometimes,  it  almost  seemed,  in  their  spirit,  that 
many  a  "  natural  man  "  must  have  left  his  pew  with 
the  feeling  in  his  heart  embodied  in  a  verse  which  the 
writer  of  this  article  found  many  years  ago  in  a  psalm- 
book  in  a  Glasgow  meeting-house  where  he  was  at- 
tending  service,  and  has  remembered  ever  since :  — 

"  As  cursing  he  like  clothes  put  on, 

Into  his  bowels  so 
Like  water,  and  into  his  bones 
Like  oil  down  let  it  go." 

God  forgive  them  !  Doubtless  many  of  them  were 
as  sincere  and  conscientious  as  the  most  zealous  of 
ficers  of  the  Holy  Inquisition. 

The  title  of  the  "  Treatise  on  the  Religious  Affec 
tions  "  might  naturally  lead  us  to  expect  a  large  ex 
pression  of  those  tenderer  feelings  with  which  Ed 
wards  was,  no  doubt,  naturally  endowed.  But  in  point 
of  fact,  if  a  sermon  of  Edwards  is  like  a  nail  driven 
through  a  human  heart,  this  treatise  is  just  what 
clinches  it.  It  is  a  sad  thought  how  many  souls  it  must 
have  driven  to  despair.  For  after  having  equipped  the 
underground  laboratory  of  "  revenging  justice  "  with 
a  complete  apparatus  of  torture,  such  as  to  think  of 
suggests  nothing  but  insanity,  he  fills  the  unhappy  be- 


388        PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

liever's  mind  with  so  many  doubts  and  scruples  that 
many  a  pious  Christian  after  reading  it  must  have  set 
himself  down  as  a  castaway.  No  warmth  of  feeling, 
no  joy  in  believing,  no  love  of  religious  exercises,  no 
disposition  to  praise  and  glorify  God,  no  assurance  of 
faith,  can  be  depended  on  as  a  "  gracious  affection ;  " 
for  "  as  the  Devil  can  counterfeit  all  the  saving  opera 
tions  and  graces  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  so  he  can  coun 
terfeit  those  operations  that  are  preparatory  to  grace," 
— in  short,  render  every  humble  Christian  so  doubtful 
of  his  own  state  that  "the  peace  which  passeth  all 
understanding"  becomes  a  phrase  without  meaning. 
A  discouraging  statement,  but  not  worse  than  Bun- 
yan's:  — 

"  A  Christian  man  is  never  long  at  ease, 
When  one  fright 's  gone,  another  doth  him  seize." 

As  a  general  rule,  we  may  venture  to  say  that  those 
writings  of  Edwards  which  are  made  up  chiefly  or  to 
a  great  extent  of  Scriptural  quotations  are  not  very 
profitable  reading.  Such  writings  commonly  deal  with 
texts  as  the  Chinese  carvers  do  with  the  roots  or  other 
vegetable  growths  upon  which  they  exercise  their 
skill ;  they  note  certain  fanciful  resemblances  in  them, 
and  add  whatever  of  their  own  is  necessary  to  com 
plete  the  fantastic  object  they  are  going  to  shape.  Be 
sides,  nothing  is  so  dangerous  to  intellectual  virility 
as  to  have  a  so-called  infallible  book  to  fall  back 
upon :  it  was  so  with  the  students  of  Aristotle,  with 
those  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen ;  and  there  is  no 
sacred  book  in  the  world  which  has  not  crippled  hu 
man  souls,  as  all  who  remember  the  Scriptural  justi 
fications  of  Slavery  will  readily  admit.  There  is  there 
fore  no  need  of  taking  up  Edwards's  exegetical  trea 
tises,  which  show  him  in  his  less  robust  aspect,  as  the 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  389 

Commentaries  on  the  Prophecies  are  generally  thought 
to  show  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  Those  who  wish  to  learn 
what  things  the  monstrous  births  arising  from  the 
conjunction  of  the  sons  of  God  with  the  daughters  of 
men  typify,  —  "  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  monstrous 
beast,"  among  others,  —  those  who  are  like  to  be  edi 
fied  by  learning  that  when  Elisha  throws  the  stick 
into  the  water  to  recover  the  sunken  axe-head,  the 
stick  represents  Christ  and  the  iron  the  soul  of  man  ; 
those  who  are  ready  to  believe  that  the  casting  the 
hook  and  taking  the  first  fish  that  came  up  and  find 
ing  a  piece  of  money  in  his  mouth  to  be  paid  as  trib 
ute  "  signify  that  ministers  of  the  gospel  should  re 
ceive  of  the  temporal  things  of  those  that  they  preach 
the  gospel  to,  whose  souls  they  catch  for  Christ,  for 
they  are  the  fish  of  which  gospel-ministers  are  the 
fishers,"  —  all  such  will  do  well  to  read  Edwards's 
"  Notes  on  the  Bible." 

Such  were  some  of  the  beliefs  of  the  great  divine 
who  stamped  his  personality  and  his  doctrines  on  the 
New  England  theology  of  the  last  century.  The  story 
of  his  outward  life  is  a  short  and  melancholy  one.  In 
1727  he  was  settled  at  Northampton  as  the  colleague  of 
his  grandfather,  the  venerable  Solomon  Stoddard,  who 
died  in  1729.  Two  great  revivals  of  religion  happened 
during  his  ministry.  Of  both  these  he  has  left  printed 
accounts.  The  work  entitled  "  Thoughts  on  the  Re 
vival  of  Religion  in  New  England  in  1740  "  is  spoken 
of  as  having  been,  from  the  time  of  its  first  publica 
tion,  to  a  very  wide  extent  the  common  text-book  of 
evangelical  divines  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treats. 

The  scenes  described  in  his  account  remind  one  of 
the  religious  frenzies  which  seized  upon  multitudes  in 


390       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF  LIFE. 

the  Middle  Ages.  There  are  pages  which  look  like 
the  account  of  an  epidemic,  and  passages  almost  as 
startling  as  one  may  read  in  Defoe's  description  of  the 
Plague  of  London.  Faintings,  convulsions,  utter  pros 
tration,  trances,  visions  like  those  of  delirium  tre- 
mens,  were  common  occurrences.  Children  went  home 
from  the  religious  meetings  crying  aloud  through  the 
streets.  Some  lost  their  reason  ;  not  enough,  Edwards 
says,  to  cause  alarm,  unless  we  are  disposed  to  gather 
up  all  we  can  to  darken  the  work  and  set  it  forth  in 
frightful  colors.  But  he  perhaps  goes  rather  too  far 
in  saying  so  much  as  this :  "  We  cannot  determine 
how  great  a  calamity  distraction  is,  considered  with  all 
its  consequences,  and  all  that  might  have  been  conse 
quent  if  the  distraction  had  not  happened  ;  nor  indeed 
whether,  thus  considered,  it  be  any  calamity  at  all,  or 
whether  it  be  not  a  mercy,  by  preventing  some  great 
sin,"  etc.  One  cannot  help  questioning  whether  a 
sense  of  the  ludicrous  did  not  relax  his  features  as  he 
wrote  this  last  sentence. 

While  the  work  was  at  its  height  a  poor  man,  over 
whelmed  with  melancholy,  made  an  attempt  to  cut  his 
throat.  Then  a  gentleman  of  good  standing,  who  had 
been  greatly  concerned  about  the  state  of  his  soul,  but 
who  "  durst  entertain  no  hope  concerning  his  own 
good  estate,"  succeeded  in  taking  his  life  in  that  way. 
"  After  this,  multitudes  in  this  and  other  towns  seemed 
to  have  it  strongly  suggested  to  them  and  pressed  upon 
them  to  do  as  this  person  had  done."  And  pious  per 
sons,  who  had  no  special  darkness  or  doubt  about  the 
goodness  of  their  state,  had  it  urged  upon  them  as  if 
somebody  had  spoken  to  them,  —  "  Cut  your  own 
throat !  Now  is  a  good  opportunity.  Now  !  Now !  " 

Within  a  very  short  j>eriod  there  was  a  remarkable- 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  391 

change ;  for  in  1744  Edwards  writes  of  the  "  very 
melancholy  state  of  things  in  New  England."  "  There 
is  a  vast  alteration,"  he  says,  "  within  these  two  years. 
.  .  .  Many  high  professors  are  fallen,  some  into  gross 
immoralities,  some  into  a  rooted  spiritual  pride,  en 
thusiasm,  and  an  incorrigible  wildness  of  behavior, 
some  into  a  cold  frame  of  mind,  showing  a  great  in 
difference  to  the  things  of  religion."  But  many,  and, 
he  hopes,  the  greater  part  of  those  that  were  professed 
converts,  were  genuine  ones,  and  he  hopes  and  is  per 
suaded  that  God  will  yet  revive  his  work. 

Seven  years  later,  writing  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Erskine, 
he  says  there  are  many  instances  of  perseverance  in 
the  subjects  of  the  late  revival ;  not  so  great  a  propor 
tion,  he  thinks,  as  in  Scotland.  "  I  cannot  say,"  he 
writes,  "that  the  greater  part  of  supposed  converts 
give  reason,  by  their  conversation,  to  suppose  that  they 
are  true  converts.  The  proportion  may  perhaps  be 
more  truly  represented  by  the  proportion  of  the  blos 
soms  on  a  tree  which  abide  and  come  to  mature  fruit 
to  the  whole  number  of  blossoms  in  the  spring."  After 
all,  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  this  is  as  much  as  could 
be  claimed  for  the  success  of  the  sower  who  went  forth 
to  sow  in  the  parable. 

Twenty-four  years  the  people  of  Northampton  lis 
tened  to  the  preaching  of  this  great  sermonizer,  this 
mighty  reasoner,  this  holy  man.  Difficulties  arose  be 
tween  him  and  his  people  into  the  consideration  of 
which  we  need  not  enter.  It  is  enough  to  refer  to  the 
delicate  subject  of  the  evil  ways  which  had  crept  in  to 
an  alarming  extent  among  the  young  people  who  lis 
tened  to  his  preaching,  and  the  excitement  caused  in 
families  by  the  fear  of  their  exposure.  But  the  final 


392       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

quarrel  was  on  the  question  of  admission  of  uncon 
verted  persons  to  the  communion  table,  against  which, 
though  it  had  been  advocated  by  his  venerated  col 
league,  he  felt  bound  in  conscience  to  declare  himself. 

There  must  have  been  something  more,  one  must 
believe,  than  these  causes  to  account  for  the  final  vote 
which  separated  him  from  his  charge.  For  when  it 
was  publicly  put  to  the  people  "  whether  they  still  in 
sisted  on  Mr.  Edwards's  dismission  from  the  pastoral 
office  over  them,"  a  great  majority  (above  two  hun 
dred  against  twenty)  voted  for  his  dismission. 

It  is  impossible  that  people  of  ordinary  sensibilities 
should  have  listened  to  his  torturing  discourses  without 
becoming  at  last  sick  of  hearing  of  infinite  horrors  and 
endless  agonies.  It  came  very  hard  to  kind-hearted 
persons  to  believe  that  the  least  sin  exposed  a  creature 
God  had  made  to  such  exorbitant  penalties.  Ed 
wards's  whole  system  had  too  much  of  the  character 
of  the  savage  people  by  whom  the  wilderness  had  so 
recently  been  tenanted.  There  was  revenge  —  "re 
venging  justice  "  was  what  he  called  it  —  insatiable, 
exhausting  its  ingenuity  in  contriving  the  most  ex 
quisite  torments ;  there  was  the  hereditary  hatred  glar 
ing  on  the  babe  in  its  cradle  ;  there  were  the  suffer 
ing  wretch  and  the  pleased  and  shouting  lookers-on. 
Every  natural  grace  of  disposition ;  all  that  had  once 
charmed  in  the  sweet  ingenuousness  of  youth,  in  the 
laughing  gayety  of  childhood,  in  the  winning  helpless 
ness  of  infancy  ;  every  virtue  that  Plato  had  dreamed 
of,  every  character  that  Plutarch  had  drawn,  —  all 
were  branded  with  the  hot  iron  which  left  the  black 
ened  inscription  upon  them,  signifying  that  they  were 
accursed  of  God,  —  the  damning  word  nature. 

With  all  his  powers,  his  virtues,  his  eloquence,  it 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  393 

must  have  been  more  than  people  could  do  to  stand 
being  called  "  vile  insects,"  "  filthy  worms,"  "  fire 
brands  of  hell,"  and  other  such  hard  names.  But 
what  must  have  been  the  feeling  of  Northampton 
mothers  when  they  read  what  Edwards  said  about 
their  darlings!  It  seems  that  there  had  been  com 
plaints  against  some  preachers  for  frightening  poor  in 
nocent  children,  as  he  says,  with  talk  of  hell-fire  and 
eternal  damnation.  But  if  those  who  complain  really 
believe  what  they  profess  to,  they  show,  he  thinks,  a 
great  deal  of  weakness  and  inconsideration.  Then 
follow  the  words  which  the  writer  once  quoted  on  a 
public  occasion,  which  use  of  them  brought  him  a  let 
ter  from  a  much-respected  orthodox  clergyman,  asking 
where  they  could  be  found.  It  is  not  strange  that  he 
asked,  for  he  might  have  looked  in  vain  for  them  in 
the  ten-volume  edition  of  Edwards's  works,  published 
under  the  editorship  of  his  own  predecessor,  grandson 
of  Edwards,  the  Reverend  Sereno  E.  Dwight,  or  the 
English  reprint  of  that  edition.  But  the  editor  of  the 
edition  of  the  work  on  "  Revivals,"  published  in  New 
York  in  1832,  did  not  think  it  necessary,  perhaps 
honest,  to  omit  the  passage,  and  this  is  the  way  it 
reads :  — 

"  As  innocent  as  children  seem  to  be  to  us,  yet,  if  they  are  out 
of  Christ,  they  are  not  so  in  God 's  sight,  but  are  young  vipers, 
and  are  infinitely  more  hateful  than  vipers,  and  are  in  a  most  mis 
erable  condition,  as  well  as  grown  persons;  and  they  are  naturally 
very  senseless  and  stupid,  being  born  as  the  wild  ass's  colt,  and 
need  much  to  awaken  them." 

Is  it  possible  that  Edwards  read  the  text  mothers 
love  so  well,  "  Suffer  little  vipers  to  come  unto  me, 
and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of 
God"? 


394        PAGES    FBOM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

The  truth  is,  Edwards  belonged  in  Scotland,  to 
which  he  owed  so  much,  and  not  to  New  England. 
And  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened,  if  it  had 
happened  early  enough,  both  for  him  and  for  his  peo 
ple,  was  what  did  happen  after  a  few  years  of  resi 
dence  at  Stockbridge,  where  he  went  after  leaving 
Northampton,  —  namely,  his  transfer  to  the  presidency 
of  the  college  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  where  the 
Scotch  theological  thistle  has  always  flourished,  native 
or  imported,  —  a  stately  flower  at  present,  with  fewer 
prickles  and  livelier  bloom  than  in  the  days  of  Thomas 
Boston,  the  Ettrick  shepherd  of  old.  Here  he  died 
before  assuming  the  duties  of  his  office  ;  died  in  faith 
and  hope,  —  hope  for  himself,  at  any  rate,  perhaps,  as 
we  shall  see,  with  less  despairing  views  for  the  future 
of  his  fellow-creatures  than  his  printed  works  have 
shown  us. 

The  reader  may  have  patience  left  for  a  few  gen 
eral  remarks. 

The  spiritual  nature  seems  to  be  a  natural  endow 
ment,  like  a  musical  ear.  Those  who  have  no  ear  for 
music  must  be  very  careful  how  they  speak  about  that 
mysterious  world  of  thrilling  vibrations  which  are  idle 
noises  to  them.  And  so  the  true  saint  can  be  entirely 
appreciated  only  by  saintly  natures.  Yet  the  least 
spiritual  man  can  hardly  read  those  remarkable  "  Res 
olutions  "  of  Edwards  without  a  reverence  akin  to  awe 
for  his  purity  and  elevation.  His  beliefs  and  his  con 
duct  we  need  not  hesitate  to  handle  freely.  We  have 
lately  seen  unquestioning  and  unquestioned  "  faith" 
ending  in  child-murder.  The  spiritual  nature  is  no 
safeguard  against  error  of  doctrine  or  practice ;  in 
deed,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  a  majority  of  all  the 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  395 

spiritual  natures  in  the  world  would  be  found  in  Chris 
tian  countries. 

Edwards's  system  seems,  in  the  light  of  to-day,  to 
the  last  degree  barbaric,  mechanical,  materialistic,  pes 
simistic.  If  he  had  lived  a  hundred  years  later,  and 
breathed  the  air  of  freedom,  he  could  not  have  written 
with  such  old-world  barbarism  as  we  find  in  his  vol 
canic  sermons.  We  can  realize  in  our  day  the  truth 
of  Montesquieu's  saying,  "  If  the  punishments  of  the 
Orientals  horrify  humanity,  the  reason  is  that  the  des 
pot  who  ordains  them  is  above  all  laws.  It  is  not  so 
in  republics,  wherein  the  laws  are  always  mild,  be 
cause  he  who  makes  them  is  himself  a  subject."  We 
cannot  have  self-government  and  humane  laws  without 
its  reacting  on  our  view  of  the  Divine  administration. 
It  was  not  so  strange  that  Thomas  Boston,  from  whose 
livid  pages  Edwards  derived  much  of  his  inspiration, 
should  put  his  hearers  on  the  rack  of  his  depraved  im 
agination,  for  he  could  remember  the  days  when  tor 
ture  was  used  in  Scotland  to  extract  evidence.  He 
may  have  heard  the  story  told  in  his  nursery,  —  for 
he  was  a  boy  six  years  old  at  the  time,  —  how  they 
had  been  applying  the  thumb-screws  for  an  hour  and 
a  half  to  Principal  William  Carstairs,  at  Holyrood 
Palace,  under  the  direction  of  the  Privy  Council. 

Again,  what  can  be  more  mechanical  than  the  God 
of  all  gods  he  contrived,  —  or  accepted,  —  under  the 
name  of  Justice,  —  a  piece  of  iron  machinery  which 
would  have  held  back  the  father's  arms  stretching  out 
to  embrace  his  son,  and  shed  the  blood  of  the  prodigal, 
instead  of  that  of  the  fatted  calf  ? 

What  can  be  more  utterly  materialistic  than  to  at 
tach  the  idea  of  sinfulness  and  responsibility,  and  lia 
bility  to  eternal  suffering  in  consequence,  to  a  little 


896       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

organio  bundle,  with  no  more  knowledge  of  its  rela 
tions  to  the  moral  world  than  a  marsupial  embryo  in 
the  maternal  pouch  has  of  its  geographical  position  ? 

And  what  pessimism  that  ever  entered  the  mind  of 
man  has  gone  farther  than  that  which  taxed  the  im 
agination  to  the  utmost  for  its  horrors,  and  declared 
that  these  were  but  the  faintest  image  of  what  was  re 
served  for  the  bulk  of  mankind  ? 

There  is  reason  to  fear  that  Edwards  has  not  been 
fairly  dealt  with  in  all  respects.  We  have  seen  that 
in  one  instance  expressions,  which  it  was  probably 
thought  would  give  offence,  were  omitted  by  his  editor. 
A  far  more  important  matter  remains  to  be  cleared 
up.  The  writer  is  informed  on  unquestionable  author 
ity  that  there  is  or  was  in  existence  a  manuscript  of  Ed 
wards  in  which  his  views  appear  to  have  undergone  a 
great  change  in  the  direction  of  Arianism,  or  of  Sabel- 
lianism,  which  is  an  old-fashioned  Unitarianism,  or  at 
any  rate  show  a  defection  from  his  former  standard  of 
orthodoxy,  and  which  its  custodians,  thinking  it  best 
to  be  wise  as  serpents  in  order  that  they  might  con 
tinue  harmless  as  doves,  have  considered  it  their  duty 
to  withhold  from  the  public.  If  any  of  our  friends  at 
Andover  can  inform  us  what  are  the  facts  about  this 
manuscript,  such  information  would  be  gratefully  re 
ceived  by  many  inquirers,  who  would  be  rejoiced  to 
know  that  so  able  and  so  good  a  man  lived  to  be  eman 
cipated  from  the  worse  than  heathen  conceptions  which 
had  so  long  enchained  his  powerful,  but  crippled  un 
derstanding. 

Much  that  was  morbid  in  Edwards's  theology  was 
doubtless  owing  to  ill  health,  from  which  he  was  an 
habitual  sufferer,  a  melancholic  temperament,  and  the 
habit  of  constant  moral  introspection,  of  which  his 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  397 

diary  gives  abundant  evidence.  Mr.  Galton,  in  his 
work  on  "  Heredity,"  says,  after  having  looked  up 
the  history  of  a  good  many  clergymen  :  "  A  gently 
complaining  and  fatigued  spirit  is  that  in  which  evan 
gelical  divines  are  very  apt  to  pass  their  days.  .  .  . 
There  is  an  air  of  invalidism  about  most  religious 
biographies."  And  Taine,  in  his  notice  of  the  poet 
Cowper,  speaks  of  "  the  profound  dejection,  gloomy 
and  continued  despair,  the  horrible  malady  of  the 
nerves  and  the  soul  which  leads  to  suicide,  Puritanism, 
and  madness." 

Perpetual  self-inspection  leads  to  spiritual  hypo- 
chondriasis.  If  a  man  insists  on  counting  his  pulse 
twenty  times  a  day,  on  looking  at  his  tongue  every 
hour  or  two,  on  taking  his  temperature  with  the  ther 
mometer  morning  and  evening,  on  weighing  himself 
three  or  four  times  a  week,  he  will  soon  find  himself 
in  a  doubtful  state  of  bodily  health.  It  is  just  so  with 
those  who  are  perpetually  counting  their  spiritual 
pulse,  taking  the  temperature  of  their  feelings,  weigh 
ing  their  human  and  necessarily  imperfect  characters 
against  the  infinite  perfections  placed  in  the  other 
scale  of  the  balance. 

These  melancholy  diarists  remind  one  of  children 
in  their  little  gardens,  planting  a  bean  or  a  lupine- 
seed  in  the  morning,  and  pulling  it  up  in  the  evening 
to  see  if  it  has  sprouted  or  how  it  is  getting  on.  The 
diarist  pulls  his  character  up  by  the  roots  every  even 
ing,  and  finds  the  soil  of  human  nature,  —  the  humus, 
—  out  of  which  it  must  needs  grow,  clinging  to  its 
radicles.  Then  he  mourns  over  himself  as  did  the 
saintly  Brainard  as  "  inexpressibly  loathsome  and  de 
filed,"  calling  himself  so  vile  "  that  [he]  dared  not  look 
anybody  in  the  face,"  and  soon  becomes  a  fit  subject 


398       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

for  medical  treatment,  having  lost  all  wholesome  sense 
of  the  world  about  him  and  of  his  own  personality. 

Jeremy  Taylor  has  well  said  of  godly  fear :  "  But 
this  so  excellent  grace  is  soon  abused  in  the  best  and 
most  tender  spirits  ;  in  those  who  are  softened  by  na 
ture  and  religion,  by  infelicities  or  cares,  by  sudden  ac 
cidents  or  a  sad  soul ;  and  the  Devil,  observing  that 
fear,  like  spare  diet,  starves  the  fevers  of  lust  and 
quenches  the  flames  of  hell,  endeavors  to  heighten  this 
abstinence  so  much  as  to  starve  the  man,  and  break 
the  spirit  into  timorousness  and  scruple,  sadness  and 
unreasonable  tremblings,  credulity  and  trifling  obser 
vation,  suspicion  and  false  accusations  of  God." 

The  fact  that,  while  Edwards's  name  is  used  as  a 
war-cry,  and  inscribed  on  the  labarum  of  the  old  bow- 
and-arrow  controversialists,  his  works  are  neglected, 
his  doctrines  either  passed  over  in  silence  or  repudi 
ated,  shows  that  his  great  powers  were  under  some  mis 
guiding  influence.  The  truth  is  that  the  whole  system 
of  beliefs  which  came  in  with  the  story  of  the  "  fall  of 
man,"  the  curse  of  the  father  of  the  race  conveyed  by 
natural  descent  to  his  posterity,  the  casting  of  the  re 
sponsibility  of  death  and  all  the  disorders  of  creation 
upon  the  unfortunate  being  who  found  them  a  part  of 
the  arrangements  of  the  universe  when  he  first  made 
his  appearance,  is  gently  fading  out  of  enlightened  hu 
man  intelligence,  and  we  are  hardly  in  a  condition  to  re 
alize  what  a  tyranny  it  once  exerted  over  many  of  the 
strongest  minds.  We  no  longer  pretend  to  hold  our 
primeval  ancestor,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  respon 
sible  for  the  entrance  of  death  into  the  world*  for  the 
teeth  of  the  carnivora,  for  the  venom  of  the  snake,  for 
the  battles  of  the  megatherium,  the  maladies  of  the 
ichthyosaurus,  the  indispositions  of  the  pterodactyl,  the 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  399 

extinction  of  the  strange  creatures  that  left  their  foot 
prints  on  the  shores  of  the  Connecticut,  where  we  have 
been  finding  the  tracks  of  a  fossil  theology  not  less 
monstrous  than  its  predecessors  in  the  material  world. 
Astronomy,  Geology,  Ethnology,  and  the  comparative 
study  of  Oriental  religions  have  opened  the  way  ;  and 
now.  Anthropology  has  taken  hold  of  the  matter,  and, 
leaving  aside  all  those  questions  which  by  searching  no 
man  can  find  out,  must  deal  with  the  problem  which 
Asiatic  tradition  and  its  interpreters  have  failed  to 
solve.  But  in  the  mean  time  many  lessons  are  to  be 
learned  from  the  careful  study  of  a  man,  who,  as  Mr. 
Bancroft  says,  "  sums  up  the  old  theology  of  New  Eng 
land  and  is  the  fountain-head  of  the  new."  What  bet 
ter  comment  can  be  made  on  his  misdirected  powers 
than  his  own  remark  :  "  A  person  may  have  a  strong 
reason  and  yet  not  a  good  reason.  He  may  have  a 
strength  of  mind  to  drive  an  argument  and  yet  not 
have  even  balances." 

As  we  picture  the  scenes  he  described,  the  Divine 
ingenuity  fitting  the  body  and  soul  for  the  extremity 
of  suffering,  and  providing  new  physical  and  chemical 
laws  to  carry  torture  beyond  our  power  of  imagination, 
friends  looking  on  pleased,  parents  rejoicing  and  sing 
ing  hallelujahs  as  they  see  their  children  "  turned  away 
and  beginning  to  enter  into  the  great  furnace  "  where 
they  are  to  "  roast "  forever,  all  natural  affections  ut 
terly  gone,  —  can  we  find  anywhere  a  more  striking  il 
lustration  of  his  own  words  ?  He  is  speaking  of  the 
self-torturing  worship  of  the  heathen :  "  How  power 
ful  must  be  the  delusions  of  the  human  mind,  and  how 
strong  the  tendency  of  the  heart  to  carry  them  such  a 
length  and  so  to  overcome  the  tenderest  feelings  of  hu 
man  nature !  " 


400       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OP  LIFE. 

There  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  attacking  the  mo. 
tives  of  a  man  so  saintly  in  life,  so  holy  in  aspirations, 
so  patient,  so  meek,  so  laborious,  so  thoroughly  in  ear 
nest  in  the  work  to  which  his  life  was  given.  But 
after  long  smothering  in  the  sulphurous  atmosphere  of 
his  thought  one  cannot  help  asking,  Was  this  or  any 
thing  like  this,  — is  this  or  anything  like  this, —  the 
accepted  belief  of  any  considerable  part  of  Protestant 
ism  ?  If  so,  we  must  say  with  Bacon,  "  It  were  bet 
ter  to  have  no  opinion  of  God  at  all  than  such  an 
opinion  as  is  unworthy  of  Him."  A  "  natural  man  " 
is  better  than  an  unnatural  theologian.  It  is  a  less 
violence  to  our  nature  to  deify  protoplasm  than  it  is  to 
diabolize  the  Deity. 

The  practical  effect  of  Edwards's  teachings  about 
the  relations  of  God  and  man  has  bequeathed  a  les 
son  not  to  be  forgotten.  A  revival  in  which  the  ma 
jority  of  the  converts  fell  away  ;  nervous  disorders  of 
all  sorts,  insanity,  suicide,  among  the  rewards  of  his 
eloquence ;  Religion  dressed  up  in  fine  phrases  and 
made  much  of,  while  Morality,  her  Poor  Relation,  was 
getting  hard  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  young  per 
sons  who  had  grown  up  under  the  reign  of  terror  of 
the  Northampton  pulpit;  alienation  of  the  hearts  of 
his  people  to  such  an  extent  as  is  rarely  seen  in  the 
bitterest  quarrels  between  pastor  and  flock,  —  if  this 
was  a  successful  ministry,  what  disasters  would  con 
stitute  a  failure  ? 

"Never,"  says  Professor  Fisher,  "  was  there  a  louder 
call  for  the  utmost  candor  and  fairness  in  dealing 
with  the  difficulties  and  objections  of  inquiring  minds, 
whose  perplexities  find  little  relief  in  much  of  the  cur 
rent  and  traditional  teaching." 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS.  401 

At  the  bottom  of  these  difficulties  lies  the  doctrine 
of  the  "  fall  of  man."  Does  not  the  present  state  of 
our  knowledge  compel  us  to  consider  the  narrative  on 
which  this  is  based  as  a  disproved,  or  at  the  best  an 
unproved  story,  and  to  consign  it,  with  the  cohering 
doctrine  of  sin  and  all  other  inferences  dependent 
upon  it,  to  the  nebulous  realm  of  Asiatic  legends,  the 
vehicles  of  many  different  religions,  each  with  its  min 
gled  truths  and  errors  ?  The  change  of  opinion  is  com 
ing  quite  rapidly  enough :  we  should  hardly  dare  to 
print  our  doubts  and  questions  if  we  did  not  know 
that  they  will  be  read  by  few,  made  light  of  by  some 
of  these,  summarily  answered  and  dismissed  by  others, 
and  have  no  apparent  immediate  effect  on  the  great 
mass  of  beliefs.  For  what  we  want  in  the  religious 
and  in  the  political  organisms  is  just  that  kind  of  vital 
change  which  takes  place  in  our  bodies,  —  interstitial 
disintegration  and  reintegration ;  and  one  of  the  legit 
imate  fears  of  our  time  is  that  science,  which  Sainte- 
Beuve  would  have  us  think  has  destroyed  faith,  will 
be  too  rapid  in  its  action  on  beliefs.  So  the  doubter 
should  be  glad  that  he  is  doubted ;  the  rationalist 
respect  the  obduracy  of  the  dogmatist ;  and  all  the 
mighty  explosives  with  which  the  growth  of  knowledge 
has  furnished  us  should  be  used  rather  to  clear  the 
path  for  thost  who  come  after  us  than  to  shatter  the 
roofs  which  have  long  protected  and  still  protect  so 
many  of  our  humble  and  trusting  fellow-creatures. 


xn. 

THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW. 

THE  priest  is  dead  for  the  Protestant  world.  Lu 
ther's  inkstand  did  not  kill  the  devil,  but  it  killed  the 
priest,  at  least  for  us.  He  is  a  loss  in  many  respects 
to  be  regretted.  He  kept  alive  the  spirit  of  reverence. 
He  was  looked  up  to  as  possessing  qualities  superhu 
man  in  their  nature,  and  so  was  competent  to  be  the 
stay  of  the  weak  and  their  defence  against  the  strong. 
If  one  end  of  religion  is  to  make  men  happier  in  this 
world  as  well  as  in  the  next,  mankind  lost  a  great 
source  of  happiness  when  the  priest  was  reduced  to  the 
common  level  of  humanity,  and  became  only  a  minis 
ter.  Priest,  which  was  presbyter*  corresponded  to 
senator,  and  was  a  title  to  respect  and  honor.  Minis 
ter  is  but  the  diminutive  of  magister,  and  implies  an 
obligation  to  render  service. 

It  was  promised  to  the  first  preachers  that  in  proof 
of  their  divine  mission  they  should  have  the  power  of 
casting  out  devils  and  talking  in  strange  tongues ;  that 
they  should  handle  serpents  and  drink  poisons  with 
impunity ;  that  they  should  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and 
they  should  recover.  The  Roman  Church  claims  some 
of  these  powers  for  its  clergy  and  its  sacred  objects 
to  this  day.  Miracles,  it  is  professed,  are  wrought  by 
them,  or  through  them,  as  in  the  days  of  the  apostles. 
Protestantism  proclaims  that  the  age  of  such  occur 
rences  as  the  apostles  witnessed  is  past  What  does 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE   PEW.  403 

it  know  about  miracles  ?  It  knows  a  great  many  rec 
ords  of  miracles,  but  this  is  a  different  kind  of  knowl 
edge. 

The  minister  may  be  revered  for  his  character,  fol 
lowed  for  his  eloquence,  admired  for  his  learning, 
loved  for  his  amiable  qualities,  but  he  can  never  be 
what  the  priest  was  in  past  ages,  and  is  still,  in  the 
Roman  Church.  Dr.  Arnold's  definition  may  be  found 
fault  with,  but  it  has  a  very  real  meaning.  "  The  es 
sential  point  in  the  notion  of  a  priest  is  this :  that  he 
is  a  person  made  necessary  to  our  intercourse  with 
God,  without  being  necessary  or  beneficial  to  us  mor 
ally,  —  an  unreasonable,  unmoral,  spiritual  necessity." 
He  did  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  priest  might  not 
have  all  the  qualities  which  would  recommend  him  as 
a  teacher  or  as  a  man,  but  that  he  had  a  special  power, 
quite  independent  of  his  personal  character,  which  could 
act,  as  it  were,  mechanically ;  that  out  of  him  went  a 
virtue,  as  from  the  hem  of  his  Master's  raiment,  to 
those  with  whom  his  sacred  office  brought  him  in  con 
tact. 

It  was  a  great  comfort  to  poor  helpless  human  be 
ings  to  have  a  tangible  personality  of  like  nature  with 
themselves  as  a  mediator  between  them  and  the  heav 
enly  powers.  Sympathy  can  do  much  for  the  sorrow 
ing,  the  suffering,  the  dying,  but  to  hear  God  himself 
speaking  directly  through  human  lips,  to  feel  the  touch 
of  a  hand  which  is  the  channel  of  communication  with 
the  unseen  Omnipotent,  this  was  and  is  the  privilege 
of  those  who  looked  and  those  who  still  look  up  to  a 
priesthood.  It  has  been  said,  and  many  who  have 
walked  the  hospitals  or  served  in  the  dispensaries  can 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  the  assertion,  that  the 
Koman  Catholics  know  how  to  die.  The  same  thing  is 


404       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

less  confidently  to  be  said  of  Protestants.  How  fre 
quently  is  the  story  told  of  the  most  exemplary  Prot 
estant  Christians,  nay,  how  common  is  it  to  read  in  the 
lives  of  the  most  exemplary  Protestant  ministers,  that 
they  were  beset  with  doubts  and  terrors  in  their  last 
days!  The  blessing  of  the  viaticum  is  unknown  to 
them.  Man  is  essentially  an  idolater, — that  is,  in 
bondage  to  his  imagination,  —  for  there  is  no  more 
harm  in  the  Greek  word  eidolon  than  in  the  Latin 
word  imago.  He  wants  a  visible  image  to  fix  his 
thought,  a  scarabee  or  a  crux  ansata,  or  the  modern 
symbols  which  are  to  our  own  time  what  these  were  to 
the  ancient  Egyptians.  He  wants  a  vicegerent  of  the 
Almighty  to  take  his  dying  hand  and  bid  him  god 
speed  on  his  last  journey.  Who  but  such  an  imme 
diate  representative  of  the  Divinity  would  have  dared 
to  say  to  the  monarch  just  laying  his  head  on  the 
block,  "  Fits  de  Saint  Louis,  monte  an  del "  ? 

It  has  been  a  long  and  gradual  process  to  thoroughly 
republicanize  the  American  Protestant  descendant  of 
the  ancient  priesthood.  The  history  of  the  Congrega- 
tionalists  in  New  England  would  show  us  how  this 
change  has  gone  on,  until  we  have  seen  the  church  be 
come  a  hall  open  to  all  sorts  of  purposes,  the  pulpit 
come  down  to  the  level  of  the  rostrum,  and  the  clergy 
man  take  on  the  character  of  a  popular  lecturer  who 
deals  with  every  kind  of  subject,  including  religion. 

Whatever  fault  we  may  find  with  many  of  their  be 
liefs,  we  have  a  right  to  l>e  proud  of  our  Pilgrim  and 
Puritan  fathers  among  the  clergy.  They  were  ready 
to  do  and  to  suffer  anything  for  their  faith,  and  a  faith 
which  breeds  heroes  is  better  than  an  unbelief  which 
leaves  nothing  worth  being  a  hero  for.  Only  let  us  be 
fair,  and  not  defend  the  creed  of  Mohammed  because 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW.  405 

it  nurtured  brave  men  and  enlightened  scholars,  or  re 
frain  from  condemning  polygamy  in  our  admiration  of 
the  indomitable  spirit  and  perseverance  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  of  Mormonism,  or  justify  an  inhuman  belief, 
or  a  cruel  or  foolish  superstition,  because  it  was  once 
held  or  acquiesced  in  by  men  whose  nobility  of  •  char 
acter  we  heartily  recognize.  The  New  England  clergy 
can  look  back  to  a  noble  record,  but  the  pulpit  has 
sometimes  required  a  homily  from  the  pew,  and  may 
sometimes  find  it  worth  its  while  to  listen  to  one  even 
in  our  own  days. 

From  the  settlement  of  the  country  to  the  present 
time,  the  ministers  have  furnished  the  highest  type  of 
character  to  the  people  among  whom  they  have  lived. 
They  have  lost  to  a  considerable  extent  the  position  of 
leaders,  but  if  they  are  in  our  times  rather  to  be  looked 
upon  as  representatives  of  their  congregations,  they 
represent  what  is  best  among  those  of  whom  they  are 
the  speaking  organs.  We  have  a  right  to  expect  them 
to  be  models  as  well  as  teachers  of  all  that  makes  the 
best  citizens  for  this  world  and  the  next,  and  they 
have  not  been,  and  are  not  in  these  later  days  un 
worthy  of  their  high  calling.  They  have  worked  hard 
for  small  earthly  compensation.  They  have  been  the 
most  learned  men  the  country  had  to  show,  when 
learning  was  a  scarce  commodity.  Called  by  their 
consciences  to  self-denying  labors,  living  simply,  often 
half-supported  by  the  toil  of  their  own  hands,  they 
have  let  the  light,  such  light  as  shone  for  them,  into 
the  minds  of  our  communities  as  the  settler's  axe  let 
the  sunshine  into  their  log-huts  and  farm-houses. 

Their  work  has  not  been  confined  to  their  profes 
sional  duties,  as  a  few  instances  will  illustrate.  Often, 
as  was  just  said,  they  toiled  like  day-laborers,  teasing 


406        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

lean  harvests  out  of  their  small  inclosures  of  land,  — 
for  the  New  England  soil  is  not  one  that  "  laughs  when 
tickled  with  a  hoe,"  but  rather  one  that  sulks  when 
appealed  to  with  that  persuasive  implement.  The 
father  of  the  eminent  Boston  physician  whose  recent 
loss  is  so  deeply  regretted,  the  Reverend  Pitt  Clarke, 
forty-two  years  pastor  of  the  small  fold  in  the  town  of 
Norton,  Massachusetts,  was  a  typical  example  of  this 
union  of  the  two  callings,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
a  story  of  a  more  wholesome  and  useful  life,  within  a 
limited  and  isolated  circle,  than  that  which  the  pious 
care  of  one  of  his  children  commemorated.  Sometimes 
the  New  England  minister,  like  worthy  Mr.  Ward  of 
Stratford-on-Avon,  in  old  England,  joined  the  prac 
tice  of  medicine  to  the  offices  of  his  holy  profession. 
Michael  Wigglesworth,  the  poet  of  "The  Day  of 
Doom,"  and  Charles  Chauncy,  the  second  president  of 
Harvard  College,  were  instances  of  this  twofold  service. 
In  politics  their  influence  has  always  been  felt,  and  in 
many  cases  their  drums  ecclesiastic  have  beaten  the 
reveille*  as  vigorously,  and  to  as  good  purpose,  as  it 
ever  sounded  in  the  slumbering  camp.  Samuel  Cooper 
sat  in  council  with  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution  in 
Boston.  The  three  Northampton-born  brothers  Allen, 
Thomas,  Moses,  and  Solomon,  lifted  their  voices,  and, 
when  needed,  their  armed  hands,  in  the  cause  of  lib 
erty.  In  later  days,  Elijah  Parish  and  David  Osgood 
carried  politics  into  their  pulpits  as  boldly  as  their 
antislavery  successors  have  done  in  times  still  more  re 
cent. 

The  learning,  the  personal  character,  the  sacredness 
of  their  office,  tended  to  give  the  New  England  clergy 
of  past  generations  a  kind  of  aristocratic  dignity,  a 
personal  grandeur,  much  more  felt  in  the  days  when 


THE   PULPIT   AND   THE   PEW.  407 

class  distinctions  were  recognized  less  unwillingly  than 
at  present.  Their  costume  added  to  the  effect  of  their 
bodily  presence,  as  the  old  portraits  illustrate  for  us, 
as  those  of  us  who  remember  the  last  of  the  "fair, 
white,  curly  "  wigs,  as  it  graced  the  imposing  figure  of 
the  Reverend  Dr.  Marsh  of  Wethersfield,  Connecticut, 
can  testify.  They  were  not  only  learned  in  the  history 
of  the  past,  but  they  were  the  interpreters  of  the  proph 
ecy,  and  announced  coming  events  with  a  confidence 
equal  to  that  with  which  the  weather-bureau  warns  us 
of  a  coming  storm.  The  numbers  of  the  book  of  Dan 
iel  and  the  visions  of  the  Revelation  were  not  too  hard 
for  them.  In  the  commonplace  book  of  the  Reverend 
Joel  Benedict  is  to  be  found  the  following  record, 
made,  as  it  appears,  about  the  year  1773  :  "  Convers 
ing  with  Dr.  Bellamy  upon  the  downfall  of  Antichrist, 
after  many  things  had  been  said  upon  the  subject,  the 
Doctor  began  to  warm,  and  uttered  himself  after  this 
manner  :  '  Tell  your  children  to  tell  their  children  that 
in  the  year  1866  something  notable  will  happen  in  the 
church ;  tell  them  the  old  man  says  so.' ' 

"  The  old  man  "  came  pretty  near  hitting  the  mark, 
as  we  shall  see  if  we  consider  what  took  place  in  the 
decade  from  1860  to  1870.  In  1864  the  Pope  issued 
the  "  Syllabus  of  Errors,"  which  "  must  be  considered 
by  Romanists  as  an  infallible  official  document,  and 
which  arrays  the  papacy  in  open  war  against  modern 
civilization  and  civil  and  religious  freedom."  The  Vat 
ican  Council  in  1870  declared  the  Pope  to  be  the 
bishop  of  bishops,  and  immediately  after  this  began 
the  decisive  movement  of  the  party  known  as  the  "  Old 
Catholics."  In  the  exact  year  looked  forward  to  by 
the  New  England  prophet,  1866,  the  evacuation  of 
Rome  by  the  French  and  the  publication  of  "Ecce 


408       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

Homo  "  appear  to  be  the  most  remarkable  events  hav 
ing  special  relation  to  the  religious  world.  Perhaps 
the  National  Council  of  the  Congregationalists,  held 
at  Boston  in  1865,  may  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the 
occurrences  which  the  oracle  just  missed. 

The  confidence,  if  not  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  lasted 
down  to  a  later  period.  "In  half  a  century,"  said 
the  venerable  Dr.  Porter  of  Con  way,  New  Hamp 
shire,  in  1822,  "there  will  be  no  Pagans,  Jews,  Mo 
hammedans,  Unitarians,  or  Methodists."  The  luilf- 
century  has  more  than  elapsed,  and  the  prediction 
seems  to  stand  in  need  of  an  extension,  like  many 
other  prophetic  utterances. 

The  story  is  told  of  David  Osgood,  the  shaggy- 
browed  old  minister  of  Medf  ord,  that  he  had  expressed 
his  belief  that  not  more  than  one  soul  in  two  thousand 
would  be  saved.  Seeing  a  knot  of  his  parishioners  in 
debate,  he  asked  them  what  they  were  discussing,  and 
was  told  that  they  were  questioning  which  of  the  Med- 
ford  people  was  the  elected  one,  the  population  being 
just  two  thousand,  and  that  opinion  was  divided  whether 
it  would  be  the  minister  or  one  of  his  deacons.  The 
story  may  or  may  not  be  literally  true,  but  it  illus 
trates  the  popular  belief  of  those  days,  that  the  cler 
gyman  saw  a  good  deal  farther  into  the  councils  of 
the  Almighty  than  his  successors  could  claim  the  power 
of  doing. 

The  objects  about  me,  as  I  am  writing,  call  to  mind 
the  varied  accomplishments  of  some  of  the  New  Eng 
land  clergy.  The  face  of  the  Revolutionary  preacher, 
Samuel  Cooper,  as  Copley  painted  it,  looks  upon  me 
with  the  pleasantest  of  smiles  and  a  liveliness  of  ex 
pression  which  makes  him  seem  a  contemporary  after  a 
hundred  years'  experience  of  eternity.  The  Plato  on 


THE   PULPIT   AND   THE   PEW.  409 

this  lower  shelf  bears  the  inscription :  "  Ezrce  Stiles, 
1766.  Olim  e  libris  Rev.  Jaredis  Eliot  de  Killing- 
worth"  Both  were  noted  scholars  and  philosophers. 
The  hand-lens  before  me  was  imported,  with  other  phil 
osophical  instruments,  by  the  Reverend  John  Prince 
of  Salem,  an  earlier  student  of  science  in  the  town 
since  distinguished  by  the  labors  of  the  Essex  Insti 
tute.  Jeremy  Belknap  holds  an  honored  place  in  that 
unpretending  row  of  local  historians.  And  in  the 
pages  of  his  "  History  of  New  Hampshire "  may  be 
found  a  chapter  contributed  in  part  by  the  most  re 
markable  man,  in  many  respects,  among  all  the  older 
clergymen- — preacher,  lawyer,  physician,  astronomer, 
botanist,  entomologist,  explorer,  colonist,  legislator  in 
state  and  national  governments,  and  only  not  seated 
on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  a  Territory 
because  he  declined  the  office  when  Washington  of 
fered  it  to  him.  This  manifold  individual  was  the 
minister  of  Hamilton,  a  pleasant  little  town  in  Essex 
County,  Massachusetts,  —  the  Reverend  Manasseh 
Cutler.  These  reminiscences  from  surrounding  objects 
came  up  unexpectedly,  of  themselves,  and  have  a  right 
here,  as  showing  how  wide  is  the  range  of  intelligence 
in  the  clerical  body  thus  accidentally  represented  in  a 
single  library  making  no  special  pretensions. 

It  is  not  so  exalted  a  claim  to  make  for  them,  but 
it  may  be  added  that  they  were  often  the  wits  and 
humorists  of  their  localities.  Mather  Byles's  facetiae 
are  among  the  colonial  classic  reminiscences.  But 
these  were,  for  the  most  part,  verbal  quips  and  quib 
bles.  True  humor  is  an  outgrowth  of  character.  It 
is  never  found  in  greater  perfection  than  in  old  clergy 
men  and  old  college  professors.  Dr.  Sprague's  "An 
nals  of  the  American  Pulpit ''  tells  many  stories  of 


410       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME   OP  LIFE. 

our  old  ministers  as  good  as  Dean  Ramsay's  "  Scot 
tish  Reminiscences."  He  has  not  recorded  the  fol 
lowing,  which  is  to  be  found  in  Miss  Larned's  excel 
lent  and  most  interesting  History  of  Windham  County, 
Connecticut.  The  Reverend  Josiah  Dwight  was  the 
minister  of  Woodstock,  Connecticut,  about  the  year 
1700.  He  was  not  old,  it  is  true,  but  he  must  have 
caught  the  ways  of  the  old  ministers.  The  "sensa 
tional"  pulpit  of  our  own  time  could  hardly  surpass 
him  in  the  drollery  of  its  expressions.  A  specimen  or 
two  may  dispose  the  reader  to  turn  over  the  pages 
which  follow  in  a  good-natured  frame  of  mind.  "  If 
unconverted  men  ever  got  to  heaven,"  he  said,  "  they 
would  feel  as  uneasy  as  a  shad  up  the  crotch  of  a 
white-oak."  Some  of  his  ministerial  associates  took 
offence  at  his  eccentricities,  and  called  on  a  visit  of 
admonition  to  the  offending  clergyman.  "  Mr.  Dwight 
received  their  reproofs  with  great  meekness,  frankly 
acknowledged  his  faults,  and  promised  amendment, 
but,  in  prayer  at  parting,  after  returning  thanks  for 
the  brotherly  visit  and  admonition,  *  hoped  that  they 
might  so  hitch  their  horses  on  earth  that  they  should 
never  kick  in  the  stables  of  everlasting  salvation.' ' 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  some  of  the  blood  of  one 
of  these  old  ministers  in  one's  veins.  An  English 
bishop  proclaimed  the  fact  before  an  assembly  of  ph}r- 
sicians  the  other  day  that  he  was  not  ashamed  to  say 
that  he  had  a  son  who  was  a  doctor.  Very  kind  that 
was  in  the  bishop,  and  very  proud  his  medical  audience 
must  have  felt.  Perhaps  he  was  not  ashamed  of  the 
Gospel  of  Luke,  "  the  beloved  physician,"  or  even  of 
the  teachings  which  came  from  the  lips  of  one  who 
was  a  carpenter,  and  the  son  of  a  carpenter.  So  a 
New-Englander,  even  if  he  were  a  bishop,  need  not  be 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE  PEW.  411 

ashamed  to  say  that  he  consented  to  have  an  ancestor 
who  was  a  minister.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  a  right 
to  be  grateful  for  a  probable  inheritance  of  good  in 
stincts,  a  good  name,  and  a  bringing  up  in  a  library 
where  he  bumped  about  among  books  from  the  time 
when  he  was  hardly  taller  than  one  of  his  father's  or 
grandfather's  folios.  What  are  the  names  of  minis 
ters'  sons  which  most  readily  occur  to  our  memory  as 
illustrating  these  advantages?  Edward  Everett,  Jo 
seph  Stevens  Buckminster,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
George  Bancroft,  Richard  Hildreth,  James  Russell 
Lowell,  Francis  Parkinan,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  were 
all  ministers'  boys.  John  Lothrop  Motley  was  the 
grandson  of  the  clergyman  after  whom  he  was  named. 
George  Ticknor  was  next  door  to  such  a  descent,  for  his 
father  was  a  deacon.  This  is  a  group  which  it  did  not 
take  a  long  or  a  wide  search  to  bring  together. 

Men  such  as  the  ministers  who  have  been  described 
could  not  fail  to  exercise  a  good  deal  of  authority  in 
the  communities  to  which  they  belonged.  The  effect 
of  the  Revolution  must  have  been  to  create  a  tendency 
to  rebel  against  spiritual  dictation.  Republicanism 
levels  in  religion  as  in  everything.  It  might  have  been 
expected,  therefore,  that  soon  after  civil  liberty  had 
been  established  there  would  be  conflicts  between  the 
traditional  authority  of  the  minister  and  the  claims  of 
the  now  free  and  independent  congregation.  So  it 
was,  in  fact,  as  for  instance  in  the  case  which  follows, 
for  which  the  reader  is  indebted  to  Miss  Larned's 
book,  before  cited. 

The  ministerial  veto  allowed  by  the  Saybrook  Plat 
form  gave  rise,  in  the  year  1792,  to  a  fierce  conflict  in 
the  town  of  Pomfret,  Connecticut.  Zephaniali  Swift. 
a  lawyer  of  Windham,  came  out  in  the  Windham 


412       PAGES  FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

"  Herald,"  in  all  the  vehemence  of  partisan  phraseol 
ogy,  with  all  the  emphasis  of  italics  and  small  capitals. 
Was  it  not  time,  he  said,  for  people  to  look  about 
them  and  see  whether  "  such  despotism  was  founded 
in  /Scripture,  in  reason,  in  policy,  or  on  the  rights  of 
man  !  A  minister,  by  his  vote,  by  his  single  voice, 
may  negative  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  church!  Are 
ministers  composed  of  finer  clay  than  the  rest  of  man 
kind,  that  entitles  them  to  this  preeminence  ?  Does  a 
license  to  preach  transform  a  man  into  a  higher  order 
of  beings  and  endow  him  with  a  natural  quality  to  gov 
ern?  Are  the  laity  an  inferior  order  of  beings,  fit 
only  to  be  slaves  and  to  be  governed?  Is  it  good 
policy  for  mankind  to  subject  themselves  to  such  de 
grading  vassalage  and  abject  submission  ?  Reason, 
common  sense,  and  the  Bible,  with  united  voice,  pro 
claim  to  all  mankind  that  they  are  all  born  free  and 
equal ;  that  every  member  of  a  church  or  Christian 
congregation  must  be  on  the  same  footing  in  respect 
of  church  government,  and  that  the  CONSTITUTION, 
which  delegates  to  one  the  power  to  negative  the  vote 
of  all  the  rest,  is  SUBVERSIVE  OF  THE  NATURAL  RIGHT 

OF  MANKIND  AND  REPUGNANT  TO  THE  WORD  OF 
GOD." 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Welch  replied  to  the  lawyer's 
attack,  pronouncing  him  to  be  "  destitute  of  delicacy, 
decency,  good  manners,  sound  judgment,  honesty, 
manhood,  and  humanity ;  a  poltroon,  a  cat's-paw,  the 
infamous  tool  of  a  party,  a  partisan,  a  political  weath 
er-cock,  and  a  ragamuffin." 

No  Fourth -of -July  orator  would  in  our  day  rant 
like  the  lawyer,  and  no  clergyman  would  use  such  lan 
guage  as  that  of  the  Reverend  Moses  Welch.  The 
clergy  have  been  pretty  well  republicanized  within  the 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW.  413 

last  two  or  three  generations,  and  are  not  likely  to  pro 
voke  quarrels  by  assertion  of  their  special  dignities  or 
privileges.  The  public  is  better  bred  than  to  carry  on 
an  ecclesiastical  controversy  in  terms  which  political 
brawlers  would  hardly  think  admissible.  The  min 
ister  of  religion  is  generally  treated  with  something 
more  than  respect ;  he  is  allowed  to  say  undisputed 
what  would  be  sharply  controverted  in  anybody  else. 
Bishop  Gilbert  Haven,  of  happy  memory,  had  been 
discussing  a  religious  subject  with  a  friend  who  was 
not  convinced  by  his  arguments.  "  Wait  till  you  hear 
me  from  the  pulpit,"  he  said ;  "  there  you  cannot  an 
swer  me."  The  preacher  —  if  I  may  use  an  image 
which  would  hardly  have  suggested  itself  to  him — has 
his  hearer's  head  in  chancery,  and  can  administer  pun 
ishment  ad  libitum.  False  facts,  false  reasoning,  bad 
rhetoric,  bad  grammar,  stale  images,  borrowed  pas 
sages,  if  not  borrowed  sermons,  are  listened  to  with 
out  a  word  of  comment  or  a  look  of  disapprobation. 

One  of  the  ablest  and  most  conscientiously  labori 
ous  of  our  clergymen  has  lately  ventured  to  question 
whether  all  his  professional  brethren  invariably  give 
utterance  to  their  sincerest  beliefs,  and  has  been 
sharply  criticised  for  so  doing.  The  layman,  who  sits 
silent  in  his  pew,  has  his  rights  when  out  of  it,  and 
among  them  is  the  right  of  questioning  that  which  has 
been  addressed  to  him  from  the  privileged  eminence 
of  the  pulpit,  or  in  any  way  sanctioned  by  his  religious 
teacher.  It  is  nearly  two  hundred  years  since  a  Bos 
ton  layman  wrote  these  words  :  "  I  am  not  ignorant  that 
the  pious  frauds  of  the  ancient,  and  the  inbred  fire  (I 
do  not  call  it  pride)  of  many  of  our  modern  divines, 
have  precipitated  them  to  propagate  and  maintain  truth 
as  well  as  falsehoods,  in  such  an  unfair  manner  as 


414       PAGES   FBOM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

has  given  advantage  to  the  enemy  to  suspect  the  whole 
doctrine  these  men  have  profest  to  be  nothing  but  a 
mere  trick." 

So  wrote  Robert  Calef,  the  Boston  merchant,  whose 
book  the  Reverend  Increase  Mather,  president  of  Har 
vard  College,  burned  publicly  in  the  college  yard.  But 
the  pity  of  it  is  that  the  layman  had  not  cried  out  ear 
lier  and  louder,  and  saved  the  community  from  the 
horror  of  those  judicial  murders  for  witchcraft,  the 
blame  of  which  was  so  largely  attributable  to  the  clergy. 

Perhaps  no  laymen  have  given  the  clergy  more 
trouble  than  the  doctors.  The  old  reproach  against 
physicians,  that  where  there  were  three  of  them  to 
gether  there  were  two  atheists,  had  a  real  significance, 
but  not  that  which  was  intended  by  the  sharp-tongued 
ecclesiastic  who  first  uttered  it.  Undoubtedly  there 
is  a  strong  tendency  in  the  pursuits  of  the  medical  pro 
fession  to  produce  disbelief  in  that  figment  of  tradition 
and  diseased  human  imagination  which  has  been  in 
stalled  in  the  seat  of  divinity  by  the  priesthood  of 
cruel  and  ignorant  ages.  It  is  impossible,  or  at  least 
very  difficult,  for  a  physician  who  has  seen  the  perpet 
ual  efforts  of  Nature  —  whose  diary  is  the  book  he 
reads  oftenest  —  to  heal  wounds,  to  expel  poisons,  to 
do  the  best  that  can  be  done  under  the  given  condi 
tions,  —  it  is  very  difficult  for  him  to  believe  in  a 
world  where  wounds  cannot  heal,  where  opiates  cannot 
give  a  respite  from  pain,  where  sleep  never  comes  with 
its  sweet  oblivion  of  suffering,  where  the  art  of  torture 
is  the  only  science  cultivated,  and  the  capacity  for  be 
ing  tormented  is  the  only  faculty  which  remains  to  the 
children  of  that  same  Father  who  cares  for  the  falling 
sparrow.  The  Deity  has  often  been  pictured  as  Mo 
loch,  and  the  physician  has,  no  doubt,  frequently  repu 
diated  him  as  a  monstrosity. 


THE  PULPIT   AND  THE  PEW.  415 

On  the  other  hand,  the  physician  has  often  been  re 
nowned  for  piety  as  well  as  for  his  peculiarly  profes 
sional  virtue  of  charity,  —  led  upward  by  what  he  sees 
to  the  source  of  all  the  daily  marvels  wrought  before 
his  own  eyes.  So  it  was  that  Galen  gave  utterance  to 
that  psalm  of  praise  which  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel 
need  not  have  been  ashamed  of;  and  if  this  "heathen" 
could  be  lifted  into  such  a  strain  of  devotion,  we  need 
not  be  surprised  to  find  so  many  devout  Christian 
worshippers  among  the  crowd  of  medical  "  atheists." 

No  two  professions  should  come  into  such  intimate 
and  cordial  relations  as  those  to  which  belong  the  heal 
ers  of  the  body  and  the  healers  of  the  mind.  There  can 
be  no  more  fatal  mistake  than  that  which  brings  them 
into  hostile  attitudes  with  reference  to  each  other,  both 
having  in  view  the  welfare  of  their  fellow-creatures. 
But  there  is  a  territory  always  liable  to  be  differed 
about  between  them.  There  are  patients  who  never 
tell  their  physician  the  grief  which  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  their  ailments.  He  goes  through  his  accustomed 
routine  with  them,  and  thinks  he  has  all  the  elements 
needed  for  his  diagnosis.  But  he  has  seen  no  deeper 
into  the  breast  than  the  tongue,  and  got  no  nearer  the 
heart  than  the  wrist.  A  wise  and  experienced  clergy 
man,  coming  to  the  patient's  bedside,  —  not  with  the 
professional  look  on  his  face  which  suggests  the  under 
taker  and  the  sexton,  but  with  a  serene  countenance 
and  a  sympathetic  voice,  with  tact,  with  patience,  wait 
ing  for  the  right  moment,  —  will  surprise  the  shy  spirit 
into  a  confession  of  the  doubt,  the  sorrow,  the  shame, 
the  remorse,  the  terror  which  underlies  all  the  bodily 
symptoms,  and  the  unburdening  of  which  into  a  lov 
ing  and  pitying  soul  is  a  more  potent  anodyne  than  all 
the  drowsy  sirups  of  the  world.  And,  on  the  other 


416       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

hand,  there  are  many  nervous  and  over-sensitive  na 
tures  which  have  been  wrought  up  by  self -torturing 
spiritual  exercises  until  their  best  confessor  would  be 
a  sagacious  and  wholesome-minded  physician. 

Suppose  a  person  to  have  become  so  excited  by  relig 
ious  stimulants  that  he  is  subject  to  what  are  known 
to  the  records  of  insanity  as  hallucinations:  that  he 
hears  voices  whispering  blasphemy  in  his  ears,  and 
sees  devils  coming  to  meet  him,  and  thinks  he  is  going 
to  be  torn  in  pieces,  or  trodden  into  the  mire.  Suppose 
that  his  mental  conflicts,  after  plunging  him  into  the 
depths  of  despondency,  at  last  reduce  him  to  a  state  of 
despair,  so  that  he  now  contemplates  taking  his  own 
life,  and  debates  with  himself  whether  it  shall  be  by 
knife,  halter,  or  poison,  and  after  much  questioning  is 
apparently  making  up  his  mind  to  commit  suicide.  Is 
not  this  a  manifest  case  of  insanity,  in  the  form  known 
as  melancholia  ?  Would  not  any  prudent  physician 
keep  such  a  person  under  the  eye  of  constant  watch 
ers,  as  in  a  dangerous  state  of,  at  least,  partial  mental 
alienation?  Yet  this  is  an  exact  transcript  of  the 
mental  condition  of  Christian  in  "  Pilgrim's  Progress," 
and  its  counterpart  has  been  found  in  thousands  of 
wretched  lives  terminated  by  the  act  of  self-destruc 
tion,  which  came  so  near  taking  place  in  the  hero  of 
the  allegory.  Now  the  wonderful  book  from  which  this 
example  is  taken  is,  next  to  the  Bible  and  the  Trea 
tise  of  "  De  Imitatione  Christi,"  the  best-known  relig 
ious  work  of  Christendom.  If  Bunyan  and  his  con 
temporary,  Sydenham,  had  met  in  consultation  over 
the  case  of  Christian  at  the  time  when  he  was  medi 
tating  self-murder,  it  is  very  possible  that  there  might 
have  been  a  difference  of  judgment.  The  physician 
would  have  one  advantage  in  such  a  consultation.  He 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE   PEW.  417 

would  pretty  certainly  have  received  a  Christian  edu 
cation,  while  the  clergyman  would  probably  know  next 
to  nothing  of  the  laws  or  manifestations  of  mental  or 
bodily  disease.  It  does  not  seem  as  if  any  theological 
student  was  really  prepared  for  his  practical  duties  un 
til  he  had  learned  something  of  the  effects  of  bodily 
derangements,  and,  above  all,  had  become  familiar  with 
the  gamut  of  mental  discord  in  the  wards  of  an  insane 
asylum. 

It  is  a  very  thoughtless  thing  to  say  that  the  physi 
cian  stands  to  the  divine  in  the  same  light  as  the  di 
vine  stands  to  the  physician,  so  far  as  each  may  at 
tempt  to  handle  subjects  belonging  especially  to  the 
other's  profession.  Many  physicians  know  a  great  deal 
more  about  religious  matters  than  they  do  about  medi 
cine.  They  have  read  the  Bible  ten  times  as  much  as 
they  ever  read  any  medical  author.  They  have  heard 
scores  of  sermons  for  one  medical  lecture  to  which 
they  have  listened.  They  often  hear  much  better 
preaching  than  the  average  minister,  for  he  hears  him 
self  chiefly,  and  they  hear  abler  men  and  a  variety  of 
them.  They  have  now  and  then  been  distinguished  in 
theology  as  well  as  in  their  own  profession.  The  name 
of  Servetus  might  call  up  unpleasant  recollections,  but 
that  of  another  medical  practitioner  may  be  safely 
mentioned.  "  It  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  that  the  question  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch  was  handled  with  anything  like  a  discern 
ing  criticism.  The  first  attempt  was  made  by  a  lay 
man,  whose  studies  we  might  have  supposed  would 
scarcely  have  led  him  to  such  an  investigation."  This 
layman  was  "  Astruc,  doctor  and  professor  of  medicine 
in  the  Royal  College  at  Paris,  and  court  physician  to 
Louis  XIV."  The  quotation  is  from  the  article  "  Pen- 


418       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF  LIFE. 

tateuch"  in  Smith's  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  "  which, 
of  course,  lies  on  the  table  of  the  least  instructed 
clergyman.  The  sacred  profession  has,  it  is  true,  re 
turned  the  favor  by  giving  the  practitioner  of  medicine 
Bishop  Berkeley's  "Treatise  on  Tar-water,"  and  the 
invaluable  prescription  of  that  "  aged  clergyman  whose 

sands  of  life  " but  let  us  be  fair,  if  not  generous, 

and  remember  that  Cotton  Mather  shares  with  Zabdiel 
Boylston  the  credit  of  introducing  the  practice  of  in 
oculation  into  America.  The  professions  should  be 
cordial  allies,  but  the  church-going,  Bible-reading  ph}r- 
sician  ought  to  know  a  great  deal  more  of  the  subjects 
included  under  the  general  name  of  theology  than  the 
clergyman  can  be  expected  to  know  of  medicine.  To 
say,  as  has  been  said  not  long  since,  that  a  young  divin 
ity  student  is  as  competent  to  deal  with  the  latter  as 
an  old  physician  is  to  meddle  with  the  former,  sug 
gests  the  idea  that  wisdom  is  not  an  heirloom  in  the 
family  of  the  one  who  says  it.  What  a  set  of  idiots 
our  clerical  teachers  must  have  been  and  be,  if,  after  a 
quarter  or  half  a  century  of  their  instruction,  a  person 
of  fair  intelligence  is  utterly  incompetent  to  form  any 
opinion  about  the  subjects  which  they  have  been  teach 
ing,  or  trying  to  teach  him,  so  long ! 

A  minister  must  find  it  very  hard  work  to  preach  to 
hearers  who  do  not  believe,  or  only  half  believe,  what 
he  preaches.  But  pews  without  heads  in  them  are  a 
still  more  depressing  spectacle.  He  may  convince  the 
doubter  and  reform  the  profligate.  But  he  cannot 
produce  any  change  on  pine  and  mahogany  by  his  dis 
courses,  and  the  more  wood  he  sees  as  he  looks  along 
his  floor  and  galleries,  the  less  his  chance  of  being  use 
ful.  It  Ls  natural  that  in  times  like  the  present  changes 
of  faith  and  of  place  of  worship  should  be  far  from  in- 


THE   PULPIT   AND   THE   PEW.  419 

frequent.  It  is  not  less  natural  that  there  should  be 
regrets  on  one  side  and  gratification  on  the  other,  when 
such  changes  occur.  It  even  happens  occasionally  that 
the  regrets  become  aggravated  into  reproaches, — 
rarely  from  the  side  which  receives  the  new  accessions, 
less  rarely  from  the  one  which  is  left.  It  is  quite  con 
ceivable  that  the  Roman  Church,  which  considers  it 
self  the  only  true  one,  should  look  on  those  who  leave 
its  communion  as  guilty  of  a  great  offence.  It  is 
equally  natural  that  a  church  which  considers  Pope 
and  Pagan  a  pair  of  murderous  giants,  sitting  at  the 
mouths  of  their  caves,  alike  in  their  hatred  to  true 
Christians,  should  regard  any  of  its  members  who  go 
over  to  Romanism  as  lost  in  fatal  error.  But  within 
the  Protestant  fold  there  are  many  compartments,  and 
it  would  seem  that  it  is  not  a  deadly  defection  to  pass 
from  one  to  another. 

So  far  from  such  exchanges  between  sects  being 
wrong,  they  ought  to  happen  a  great  deal  oftener  than 
they  do.  All  the  larger  bodies  of  Christians  should  be 
constantly  exchanging  members.  All  men  are  born 
with  conservative  or  aggressive  tendencies :  they  be 
long  naturally  with  the  idol-worshippers  or  the  idol- 
breakers.  Some  wear  their  fathers'  old  clothes,  and 
some  will  have  a  new  suit.  One  class  of  men  must 
have  their  faith  hammered  in  like  a  nail,  by  author 
ity  ;  another  class  must  have  it  worked  in  like  a  screw, 
by  argument.  Members  of  one  of  these  classes  often 
find  themselves  fixed  by  circumstances  in  the  other. 
The  late  Orestes  A.  Brownson  used  to  preach  at  one 
time  to  a  little  handful  of  persons,  in  a  small  upper 
room,  where  some  of  them  got  from  him  their  first 
lesson  about  the  substitution  of  reverence  for  idolatry, 
in  dealing  with  the  books  they  hold  sacred.  But  after 


420        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

a  time  Mr.  Brownson  found  he  had  mistaken  his 
church,  and  went  over  to  the  Roman  Catholic  estab 
lishment,  of  which  he  became  and  remained  to  his  dy 
ing  day  one  of  the  most  stalwart  champions.  Nature 
is  prolific  and  ambidextrous.  While  this  strong  con 
vert  was  trying  to  carry  us  back  to  the  ancient  faith, 
another  of  her  sturdy  children,  Theodore  Parker,  was 
trying  just  as  hard  to  provide  a  new  church  for  the 
future.  One  was  driving  the  sheep  into  the  ancient 
.  fold,  while  the  other  was  taking  down  the  bars  that 
kept  them  out  of  the  new  pasture.  Neither  of  these 
powerful  men  could  do  the  other's  work,  and  each  had 
to  find  the  task  for  which  he  was  destined. 

The  "  old  gospel  ship,"  as  the  Methodist  song  calls 
it,  carries  many  who  would  steer  by  the  wake  of  their 
vessel.  But  there  are  many  others  who  do  not  trouble 
themselves  to  look  over  the  stern,  having  their  eyes 
fixed  on  the  light-house  in  the  distance  before  them. 
In  less  figurative  language,  there  are  multitudes  of 
persons  who  are  perfectly  contented  with  the  old  for. 
mulae  of  the  church  with  which  they  and  their  fathers 
before  them  have  been  and  are  connected,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  fit,  like  old  shoes,  because 
they  have  been  worn  so  long,  and  mingled  with  these, 
in  the  most  conservative  religious  body,  are  here  and 
there  those  who  are  restless  in  the  fetters  of  a  confes 
sion  of  faith  to  which  they  have  pledged  themselves 
without  believing  in  it.  This  has  been  true  of  the 
Athanasian  creed,  in  the  Anglican  Church,  for  two 
centuries  more  or  less,  unless  the  Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury,  Tillotson,  stood  alone  in  wishing  the  church 
were  well  rid  of  it.  In  fact,  it  has  happened  to  the 
present  writer  to  hear  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  sum 
marily  disposed  of  by  one  of  the  most  zealous  members 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE   PEW.  421 

of  the  American  branch  of  that  communion,  in  a  verb 
of  one  syllable,  more  familiar  to  the  ears  of  the  fore 
castle  than  to  those  of  the  vestry. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  far  from  uncommon  to 
meet  with  persons  among  the  so-called  "  liberal  "  de 
nominations  who  are  uneasy  for  want  of  a  more  definite 
ritual  and  a  more  formal  organization  than  they  find 
in  their  own  body.  Now,  the  rector  or  the  minister 
must  be  well  aware  that  there  are  such  cases,  and  each 
of  them  must  be  aware  that  there  are  individuals  un 
der  his  guidance  whom  he  cannot  satisfy  by  argument, 
and  who  really  belong  by  all  their  instincts  to  another 
communion.  It  seems  as  if  a  thoroughly  honest, 
straight-collared  clergyman  would  say  frankly  to  his 
restless  parishioner  :  "  You  do  not  believe  the  central 
doctrines  of  the  church  which  you  are  in  the  habit  of 
attending.  You  belong  properly  to  Brother  A.'s  or 
Brother  B.'s  fold,  and  it  will  be  more  manly  and  prob 
ably  more  profitable  for  you  to  go  there  than  to  stay 
with  us."  And,  again,  the  rolling-collared  clergyman 
might  be  expected  to  say  to  this  or  that  uneasy  lis 
tener  :  "  You  are  longing  for  a  church  which  will 
settle  your  beliefs  for  you,  and  relieve  you  to  a  great 
extent  from  the  task,  to  which  you  seem  to  be  unequal, 
of  working  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and 
trembling.  Go  over  the  way  to  Brother  C.  's  or  Brother 
D.'s ;  your  spine  is  weak,  and  they  will  furnish  you  a 
back-board  which  will  keep  you  straight  and  make  you 
comfortable."  Patients  are  not  the  property  of  their 
physicians,  nor  parishioners  of  their  ministers. 

As  for  the  children  of  clergymen,  the  presumption 
is  that  they  will  adhere  to  the  general  belief  professed 
by  their  fathers.  But  they  do  not  lose  their  birth 
right  or  their  individuality,  and  have  the  world  all 


422       PAGES   FROM    AN   OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

before  them  to  choose  their  creed  from,  like  other  per 
sons.  They  are  sometimes  called  to  account  for  at 
tacking  the  dogmas  they  are  supposed  to  have  heard 
preached  from  their  childhood.  They  cannot  defend 
themselves,  for  various  good  reasons.  If  they  did, 
one  would  have  to  say  he  got  more  preaching  than 
was  good  for  him,  and  came  at  last  to  feel  about  ser 
mons  and  their  doctrines  as  confectioners'  children  do 
about  candy.  Another  would  have  to  own  that  he  got 
his  religious  belief,  not  from  his  father,  but  from  his 
mother.  That  would  account  for  a  great  deal,  for  the 
milk  in  a  woman's  veins  sweetens,  or  at  least,  dilutes 
an  acrid  doctrine,  as  the  blood  of  the  motherly  cow 
softens  the  virulence  of  small-pox,  so  that  its  mark 
survives  only  as  the  seal  of  immunity.  Another  would 
plead  atavism,  and  say  he  got  his  religious  instincts 
from  his  great-grandfather,  as  some  do  their  complex 
ion  or  their  temper.  Others  would  be  compelled  to 
confess  that  the  belief  of  a  wife  or  a  sister  had  dis 
placed  that  which  they  naturally  inherited.  No  man 
can  be  expected  to  go  thus  into  the  details  of  his  fam 
ily  history,  and,  therefore,  it  is  an  ill-bred  and  inde 
cent  thing  to  fling  a  man's  father's  creed  in  his  face, 
as  if  he  had  broken  the  fifth  commandment  in  think 
ing  for  himself  in  the  light  of  a  new  generation.  Com 
mon  delicacy  would  prevent  him  from  saying  that  he 
did  not  get  his  faith  from  his  father,  but  from  some 
body  else,  perhaps  from  his  grandmother  Lois  and  his 
mother  Eunice,  like  the  young  man  whom  the  Apostle 
cautioned  against  total  abstinence. 

It  is  always  the  right,  and  may  sometimes  be  the 
duty,  of  the  layman  to  call  the  attention  of  the  clergy 
to  the  short-comings  and  errors,  not  only  of  their  own 
time,  but  also  of  the  preceding  generations,  of  whicb 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE   PEW.  423 

they  are  the  intellectual  and  moral  product.  This  is 
especially  true  when  the  authority  of  great  names  is 
fallen  back  upon  as  a  defence  of  opinions  not  in  them 
selves  deserving  to  be  upheld.  It  may  be  very  impor 
tant  to  show  that  the  champions  of  this  or  that  set  of 
dogmas,  some  of  which  are  extinct  or  obsolete  as  be 
liefs,  while  others  retain  their  vitality,  held  certain 
general  notions  which  vitiated  their  conclusions.  And 
in  proportion  to  the  eminence  of  such  champions,  and 
the  frequency  with  which  their  names  are  appealed  to 
as  a  bulwark  of  any  particular  creed  or  set  of  doc 
trines,  is  it  urgent  to  show  into  what  obliquities  or 
extravagances  or  contradictions  of  thought  they  have 
been  betrayed. 

In  summing  up  the  religious  history  of  New  Eng 
land,  it  would  be  just  and  proper  to  show  the  agency 
of  the  Mathers,  father  and  son,  in  the  witchcraft  delu 
sion.  It  would  be  quite  fair  to  plead  in  their  behalf 
the  common  beliefs  of  their  time.  It  would  be  an 
extenuation  of  their  acts  that,  not  many  years  before, 
the  great  and  good  magistrate,  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  had 
sanctioned  the  conviction  of  prisoners  accused  of  witch 
craft.  To  fall  back  on  the  errors  of  the  time  is  very 
proper  when  we  are  trying  our  predecessors  in  foro 
conscientice.  The  houses  they  dwelt  in  may  have  had 
some  weak  or  decayed  beams  and  rafters,  but  they 
served  for  their  shelter,  at  any  rate.  It  is  quite  an 
other  matter  when  those  rotten  timbers  are  used  in 
holding  up  the  roofs  over  our  own  heads.  Still  more, 
if  one  of  our  ancestors  built  on  an  unsafe  or  an  un 
wholesome  foundation,  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to 
leave  it  and  persuade  others  to  leave  it  if  we  can. 
And  if  we  refer  to  him  as  a  precedent,  it  must  be  as  a 
warning  and  not  as  a  guide. 


424        PAGES    FROM    AN    OLD    VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

Such  was  the  reason  of  the  present  writer's  taking 
up  the  writings  of  Jonathan  Edwards  for  examination 
in  a  recent  essay.  The  "  Edwardsian "  theology  is 
still  recognized  as  a  power  in  and  beyond  the  denomi 
nation  to  which  he  belonged.  One  or  more  churches 
bear  his  name,  and  it  is  thrown  into  the  scale  of  theo 
logical  belief  as  if  it  added  great  strength  to  the  party 
which  claims  him.  That  he  was  a  man  of  extraordi 
nary  endowments  and  deep  spiritual  nature  was  not 
questioned,  nor  that  he  was  a  most  acute  reasoner,  who 
could  unfold  a  proposition  into  its  consequences  as 
patiently,  as  convincingly,  as  a  palaeontologist  extorts 
its  confession  from  a  fossil  fragment.  But  it  was 
maintained  that  so  many  dehumanizing  ideas  were 
mixed  up  with  his  conceptions  of  man,  and  so  many 
diabolizing  attributes  embodied  in  his  imagination  of 
the  Deity,  that  his  system  of  beliefs  was  tainted  through 
out  by  them,  and  that  the  fact  of  his  being  so  remark 
able  a  logician  recoiled  on  the  premises  which  pointed 
his  inexorable  syllogisms  to  such  revolting  conclusions. 
When  he  presents  us  a  God,  in  whose  sight  children, 
with  certain  not  too  frequent  exceptions,  "  are  young 
vipers,  and  are  infinitely  more  hateful  than  vipers ; " 
when  he  gives  the  most  frightful  detailed  description 
of  infinite  and  endless  tortures  which  it  drives  men 
and  women  mad  to  think  of  prepared  for  "  the  bidk 
of  mankind;"  when  he  cruelly  pictures  a  future  in 
which  parents  are  to  sing  hallelujahs  of  praise  as  they 
see  their  children  driven  into  the  furnace,  where  they 
are  to  lie  "  roasting  "  forever,  —  we  have  a  right  to 
say  that  the  man  who  held  such  beliefs  and  indulged 
in  such  imaginations  and  expressions  is  a  burden  and 
not  a  support  in  reference  to  the  creed  with  which  his 
name  is  associated.  What  heathenism  has  ever  ap- 


THE  PULPIT   AND   THE  PEW.  425 

preached  the  horrors  of  this  conception  of  human  des 
tiny  ?  It  is  not  an  abuse  of  language  to  apply  to  such 
a  system  of  beliefs  the  name  of  Christian  pessimism. 

If  these  and  similar  doctrines  are  so  generally 
discredited  as  some  appear  to  think,  we  might  ex 
pect  to  see  the  change  showing  itself  in  catechisms  and 
confessions  of  faith,  to  hear  the  joyful  news  of  relief 
from  its  horrors  in  all  our  churches,  and  no  longer  to 
read  in  the  newspapers  of  ministers  rejected  or  put  on 
trial  for  heresy  because  they  could  not  accept  the  most 
dreadful  of  these  doctrines.  Whether  this  be  so  or 
not,  it  must  be  owned  that  the  name  of  Jonathan  Ed 
wards  does  at  this  day  carry  a  certain  authority  with 
it  for  many  persons,  so  that  anything  he  believed  gains 
for  them  some  degree  of  probability  from  that  circum 
stance.  It  would,  therefore,  be  of  much  interest  to 
know  whether  he  was  trustworthy  in  his  theological 
speculations,  and  whether  he  ever  changed  his  belief 
with  reference  to  any  of  the  great  questions  above  al 
luded  to. 

Some  of  our  readers  may  remember  a  story  which 
got  abroad  many  years  ago  that  a  certain  M.  Babinet, 
a  scientific  Frenchman  of  note,  had  predicted  a  serious 
accident  soon  to  occur  to  the  planet  on  which  we  live 
by  the  collision  with  it  of  a  great  comet  then  approach 
ing  us,  or  some  such  occurrence.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  this  prediction  produced  anxiety  and  alarm  in 
many  timid  persons.  It  became  a  very  interesting 
question  with  them  who  this  M.  Babinet  might  be. 
Was  he  a  sound  observer,  who  had  made  other  ob 
servations  and  predictions  which  had  proved  accurate  ? 
Or  was  he  one  of  those  men  who  are  always  making 
blunders  for  other  people  to  correct?  Is  he  known  to 
have  changed  his  opinion  as  to  the  approaching  dis 
astrous  event  ? 


426       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD  VOLUME  OF   LIFE. 

So  long  as  there  were  any  persons  made  anxious  by 
this  prediction,  so  long  as  there  was  even  one  who  be 
lieved  that  he,  and  his  family,  and  his  nation,  and  his 
race,  and  the  home  of  mankind,  with  all  its  monu 
ments,  were  very  soon  to  be  smitten  in  mid-heaven  and 
instantly  shivered  into  fragments,  it  was  very  desir 
able  to  find  any  evidence  that  this  prophet  of  evil  was 
a  man  who  held  many  extravagant  and  even  monstrous 
opinions.  Still  more  satisfactory  would  it  be  if  it 
could  be  shown  that  he  had  reconsidered  his  predic 
tions,  and  declared  that  he  could  not  abide  by  his  for 
mer  alarming  conclusions.  And  we  should  think  very 
ill  of  any  astronomer  who  would  not  rejoice  for  the 
sake  of  his  fellow-creatures,  if  not  for  his  own,  to  find 
the  threatening  presage  invalidated  in  either  or  both 
of  the  ways  just  mentioned,  even  though  he  had  com 
mitted  himself  to  M.  Babinet's  dire  belief. 

But  what  is  the  trivial,  temporal  accident  of  the  wip 
ing  out  of  a  planet  and  its  inhabitants  to  the  infinite 
catastrophe  which  shall  establish  a  mighty  world  of 
eternal  despair?  And  which  is  it  most  desirable  for 
mankind  to  have  disproved  or  weakened,  the  grounds 
of  the  threat  of  M.  Babinet,  or  those  of  the  other  in 
finitely  more  terrible  comminations,  so  far  as  they  rest 
on  the  authority  of  Jonathan  Edwards  ? 

The  writer  of  this  paper  had  been  long  engaged  in 
the  study  of  the  writings  of  Edwards,  with  reference 
to  the  essay  he  had  in  contemplation,  when,  on  speak 
ing  of  the  subject  to  a  very  distinguished  orthodox 
divine,  this  gentleman  mentioned  the  existence  of  a 
manuscript  of  Edwards  which  had  been  held  back 
from  the  public  on  account  of  some  opinions  or  ten 
dencies  it  contained,  or  was  suspected  of  containing. 
u  High  Arianism "  was  the  exact  expression  he  used 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE   PEW.  427 

with  reference  to  it.  On  relating  this  fact  to  an  illus 
trious  man  of  science,  whose  name  is  best  known  to 
botanists,  but  is  justly  held  in  great  honor  by  the  ortho 
dox  body  to  which  he  belongs,  it  appeared  that  he,  too, 
had  heard  of  such  a  manuscript,  and  the  questionable 
doctrine  associated  with  it  in  his  memory  was  Sabel- 
lianism.  It  was  of  course  proper  in  the  writer  of  an 
essay  on  Jonathan  Edwards  to  mention  the  alleged 
existence  of  such  a  manuscript,  with  reference  to  which 
the  same  caution  seemed  to  have  been  exercised  as  that 
which  led  the  editor  of  his  collected  works  to  suppress 
the  language  Edwards  had  used  about  children. 

This  mention  led  to  a  friendly  correspondence  be 
tween  the  writer  and  one  of  the  professors  in  the  the 
ological  school  at  Andover,  and  finally  to  the  publica 
tion  of  a  brief  essay,  which,  for  some  reason,  had 
been  withheld  from  publication  for  more  than  a  cen 
tury.  Its  title  is  "  Observations  concerning  the  Scrip 
ture  CEconomy  of  the  Trinity  and  Covenant  of  Redemp 
tion.  By  Jonathan  Edwards."  It  contains  thirty-six 
pages  and  a  half,  each  small  page  having  about  two 
hundred  words.  The  pages  before  the  reader  will  be 
found  to  average  about  three  hundred  and  twenty-five 
words.  An  introduction  and  an  appendix  by  the  ed 
itor,  Professor  Egbert  C.  Smyth,  swell  the  contents  to 
nearly  a  hundred  pages,  but  these  additions,  and  the 
circumstance  that  it  is  bound  in  boards,  must  not  lead 
us  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  little  volume  is  noth 
ing  more  than  a  pamphlet  in  book's  clothing. 

A  most  extraordinary  performance  it  certainly  is, 
dealing  with  the  arrangements  entered  into  by  the 
three  persons  of  the  Trinity,  in  as  bald  and  matter-of- 
fact  language  and  as  commercial  a  spirit  as  if  the 
author  had  been  handling  the  adjustment  of  a  limited 


428       PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME  OF  LIFE. 

partnership  between  three  retail  tradesmen.  But,  lest 
a  layman's  judgment  might  be  considered  insufficient, 
the  treatise  was  submitted  by  the  writer  to  one  of  the 
most  learned  of  our  theological  experts,  —  the  same 
who  once  informed  a  church  dignitary,  who  had  been 
attempting  to  define  his  theological  position,  that  he 
was  a  Eutychian,  —  a  fact  which  he  seems  to  have 
been  no  more  aware  of  than  M.  Jourdain  was  con 
scious  that  he  had  been  speaking  prose  all  his  life. 
The  treatise  appeared  to  this  professor  auti-trinitarian, 
not  in  the  direction  of  Unitarianism,  however,  but  of 
Tritheism.  Its  anthropomorphism  affected  him  like 
blasphemy,  and  the  paper  produced  in  him  the  sense 
of  "great  disgust,"  which  its  whole  character  might 
well  excite  in  the  unlearned  reader. 

All  this  is,  however,  of  little  importance,  for  this  is 
not  the  work  of  Edwards  referred  to  by  the  present 
writer  in  his  previous  essay.  The  tract  recently  printed 
as  a  volume  may  be  the  one  referred  to  by  Dr.  Bush- 
nell,  in  1851,  but  of  this  reference  by  him  the  writer 
never  heard  until  after  his  own  essay  was  already 
printed.  The  manuscript  of  the  "  Observations  "  was 
received  by  Professor  Smyth,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  in 
troduction,  about  fifteen  years  ago,  from  the  late  Rev 
erend  William  T.  Dwight,  D.  D.,  to  whom  it  was  be 
queathed  by  his  brother,  the  Reverend  Dr.  Sereno  E. 
Dwight. 

But  the  reference  of  the  present  writer  was  to  an 
other  production  of  the  great  logician,  thus  spoken  of 
in  a  quotation  from  "  the  accomplished  editor  of  the 
Hartford  *  Courant,'  "  to  be  found  in  Professor  Smyth's 
introduction  :  — 

"  It  lias  long  been  a  matter  of  private  information  that  Pro 
fessor  Edwards  A.  Park,  of  Andover,  had  in  his  possession  an  un- 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW.  429 

published  manuscript  of  Edwards  of  considerable  extent,  perhaps 
two  thirds  as  long  as  his  treatise  on  the  will.  As  few  have  ever 
seen  the  manuscript,  its  contents  are  only  known  by  vague  re 
ports.  ...  It  is  said  that  it  contains  a  departure  from  his  pub 
lished  views  on  the  Trinity  and  a  modification  of  the  view  of  orig 
inal  sin.  One  account  of  it  says  that  the  manuscript  leans  toward 
Sabe llianisin,  and  that  it  even  approaches  Pelagianism." 

It  was  to  this  "  suppressed  "  manuscript  the  present 
writer  referred,  and  not  to  the  slender  brochure  re 
cently  given  to  the  public.  He  is  bound,  therefore,  to 
say  plainly  that  to  satisfy  inquirers  who  may  be  still 
in  doubt  with  reference  to  Edwards's  theological 
views,  it  would  be  necessary  to  submit  this  manuscript, 
and  all  manuscripts  of  his  which  have  been  kept  pri 
vate,  to  their  inspection,  in  print,  if  possible,  so  that 
all  could  form  their  own  opinion  about  it  or  them. 

The  whole  matter  may  be  briefly  stated  thus :  Ed 
wards  believed  in  an  eternity  of  unimaginable  horrors 
for  "  the  bulk  of  mankind."  His  authority  counts 
with  many  in  favor  of  that  belief,  which  affects  great 
numbers  as  the  idea  of  ghosts  affected  Madame  de 
Stael :  "  Je  n'y  crois  pas,  maisje  les  crains."  This 
belief  is  one  which  it  is  infinitely  desirable  to  the  hu 
man  race  should  be  shown  to  be  possibly,  probably,  or 
certainly  erroneous.  It  is,  therefore,  desirable  in  the 
interest  of  humanity  that  any  force  the  argument  in 
its  favor  may  derive  from  Edwards's  authority  should 
be  weakened  by  showing  that  he  was  capable  of  writ 
ing  most  unwisely,  and  if  it  should  be  proved  that  he 
changed  his  opinions,  or  ran  into  any  "  heretical " 
vagaries,  by  using  these  facts  against  the  validity  of 
his  judgment.  That  he  was  capable  of  writing  most 
unwisely  has  been  sufficiently  shown  by  the  recent 
publication  of  his  "  Observations."  Whether  he  any- 


430       PAGES   FROM    AN    OLD   VOLUME   OF   LIFE. 

where  contradicted  what  were  generally  accepted  a.s 
his  theological  opinions,  or  how  far  he  may  have  lapsed 
into  heresies,  the  public  will  never  rest  satisfied  until 
it  sees  and  interprets  for  itself  everything  that  is  open 
to  question  which  may  be  contained  in  his  yet  unpub 
lished  manuscripts.  All  this  is  not  in  the  least  a  per 
sonal  affair  with  the  writer,  who,  in  the  course  of  his 
studies  of  Edwards's  works,  accidentally  heard,  from 
the  unimpeachable  sources  sufficiently  indicated,  the 
reports,  which  it  seems  must  have  been  familiar  to 
many,  that  there  was  unpublished  matter  bearing  on 
the  opinions  of  the  author  through  whose  voluminous 
works  he  had  been  toiling.  And  if  he  rejoiced  even 
to  hope  that  so  wise  a  man  as  Edwards  has  been  con 
sidered,  so  good  a  man  as  he  is  recognized  to  have 
been,  had,  possibly  in  his  changes  of  opinion,  ceased 
to  think  of  children  as  vipers,  and  of  parents  as  shout 
ing  hallelujahs  while  their  lost  darlings  were  being 
driven  into  the  flames,  where  is  the  theologian  who 
would  not  rejoice  to  hope  so  with  him  or  who  would  be 
willing  to  tell  his  wife  or  his  daughter  that  he  did 
not? 

The  real,  vital  division  of  the  religious  part  of  our 
Protestant  communities  is  into  Christian  optimists  and 
Christian  pessimists.  The  Christian  optimist  in  his 
fullest  development  is  characterized  by  a  cheerful  coun 
tenance,  a  voice  in  the  major  key,  an  undisguised  en 
joyment  of  earthly  comforts,  and  a  short  confession  of 
faith.  His  theory  of  the  universe  is  progress;  his 
idea  of  God  is  that  he  is  a  Father  with  all  the  true 
paternal  attributes,  of  man  that  he  is  destined  to  come 
into  harmony  with  the  key-note  of  divine  order,  of  this 
earth  that  it  is  a  training-school  for  a  better  sphere  of 


THE   PULPIT   AND  THE  PEW.  431 

existence.  The  Christian  pessimist  in  his  most  typi 
cal  manifestation  is  apt  to  wear  a  solemn  aspect,  to 
speak,  especially  from  the  pulpit,  in  the  minor  key,  to 
undervalue  the  lesser  enjoyments  of  life,  to  insist  on  a 
more  extended  list  of  articles  of  belief.  His  theory  of 
the  universe  recognizes  this  corner  of  it  as  a  moral 
ruin ;  his  idea  of  the  Creator  is  that  of  a  ruler  whose 
pardoning  power  is  subject  to  the  veto  of  what  is  called 
"  justice ; "  his  notion  of  man  is  that  he  is  born  a  nat 
ural  hater  of  God  and  goodness,  and  that  his  natural 
destiny  is  eternal  misery.  The  line  dividing  these  two 
great  classes  zigzags  its  way  through  the  religious  com 
munity,  sometimes  following  denominational  layers  and 
cleavages,  sometimes  going,  like  a  geological  fracture, 
through  many  different  strata.  The  natural  antago 
nists  of  the  religious  pessimists  are  the  men  of  science, 
especially  the  evolutionists,  and  the  poets.  It  was  but 
a  conditioned  prophecy,  yet  we  cannot  doubt  what  was 
in  Milton's  mind  when  he  sang,  in  one  of  the  divinest 
of  his  strains,  that 

"  Hell  itself  will  pass  away, 
And  leave  her  dolorous  mansions  to  the  peering  day." 

And  Nature,  always  fair  if  we  will  allow  her  time 
enough,  after  giving  mankind  the  inspired  tinker  who 
painted  the  Christian's  life  as  that  of  a  hunted  animal, 
"  never  long  at  ease,"  desponding,  despairing,  on  the 
verge  of  self-murder,  —  painted  it  with  an  originality, 
a  vividness,  a  power  and  a  sweetness,  too,  that  rank 
him  with  the  great  authors  of  all  time, — kind  Nature, 
after  this  gift,  sent  as  his  counterpoise  the  inspired 
ploughman,  whose  songs  have  done  more  to  humanize 
the  hard  theology  of  Scotland  than  all  the  rationalistic 
sermons  that  were  ever  preached.  Our  own  Whittier 
has  done  and  is  doing  the  same  thing,  in  a  far  holier 


432        PAGES   FROM   AN   OLD   VOLUME   OP   LIFE. 

spirit  than  Burns,  for  the  inherited  beliefs  of  New 
England  and  the  country  to  which  New  England  be 
longs.  Let  me  sweeten  these  closing  paragraphs  of 
an  essay  not  meaning  to  hold  a  word  of  bitterness  with 
a  passage  or  two  from  the  lay-preacher  who  is  listened 
to  by  a  larger  congregation  than  any  man  who  speaks 
from  the  pulpit.  Who  will  not  hear  his  words  with 
comfort  and  rejoicing  when  he  speaks  of  "  that  larger 
hope  which,  secretly  cherished  from  the  times  of  Ori- 
gen  and  Duns  Scotus  to  those  of  Foster  and  Maurice, 
has  found  its  fitting  utterance  in  the  noblest  poem  of 
the  age?" 

It  is  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam  "  to  which  he  re 
fers,  and  from  which  he  quotes  four  verses,  of  which 
this  is  the  last : 

•  •  Behold !  we  know  not  anything : 
I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  hist,  —  far  off,  —  at  hist,  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring." 

If  some  are  disposed  to  think  that  the  progress  of 
civilization  and  the  rapidly  growing  change  of  opinion 
renders  unnecessary  any  further  effort  to  humanize 
"  the  Gospel  of  dread  tidings ; "  if  any  believe  the 
doctrines  of  the  Longer  and  Shorter  Catechism  of  the 
Westminster  divines  are  so  far  obsolete  as  to  require 
no  further  handling ;  if  there  are  any  who  think  these 
subjects  have  lost  their  interest  for  living  souls  ever 
since  they  themselves  have  learned  to  stay  at  home  on 
Sundays,  with  their  cakes  and  ale  instead  of  going  to 
meeting,  —  not  such  is  Mr.  Whittier's  opinion,  as  we 
may  infer  from  his  recent  beautiful  poem,  "  The  Min 
ister's  Daughter."  It  is  not  science  alone  that  the 
old  Christian  pessimism  has  got  to  struggle  with,  but 
the  instincts  of  childhood,  the  affections  of  maternity, 


THE  PULPIT   AND   THE  PEW.  433 

the  intuitions  of  poets,  the  contagious  humanity  of  the 
philanthropist,  —  in  short,  human  nature  and  the  ad 
vance  of  civilization.  The  pulpit  has  long  helped  the 
world,  and  is  still  one  of  the  chief  defences  against  the 
dangers  that  threaten  society,  and  it  is  worthy  now,  as 
it  always  has  been  in  its  best  representation,  of  all 
love  and  honor.  But  many  of  its  professed  creeds 
imperatively  demand  revision,  and  the  pews  which  call 
for  it  must  be  listened  to,  or  the  preacher  will  by  and 
by  find  himself  speaking  to  a  congregation  of  bodiless 
echoes. 


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1892 


A    001  199366    4 


